PRESORTED STANDARD PERMIT #3036 WHITE PLAINS NY Vol. VI, No. XXXII Thursday, August 14, 2014 • $1.00 Westchester’s Most Influential Weekly LEE DANIELS Artist Profile Luke Gray Page 3 CHRIS ROSTENBERG Manic in Manhanttan Part V Page 7 SHERIF AWAD Cherry Tobacco Page 8 BETH O’KEEFE, R.N. Preventing Falls in the Bathroom Page 10 JOHN SIMON The Bed as Leveler Page 12 BARBARA BARTON SLOANE Horse Sense Page 13 Hon. LEE HAMILTON Why Government Fails World Ignores Christian Exodus from Islamic World Page 17 By RAYMOND IBRAHIM, Page 20 Prof. OREN LEVIN-WALDMAN Why Income Inequality is Zombies of the VietNam War Body Counts Walked Again in Gaza Dangerous to Democracy By ROBERT BOGEN, Page 16 Page 18 WWW.WESTCHESTERGUARDIAN.COM Page 2 THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN ThursdaY, August 14, 2014 Of Significance Feature Section ...................................................................................................................2 Senior health Safety .....................................................................................................10 Middle East Forum ..................................................................................................2, 20 Technology/Creative Disruption .................................................................................11 Community Section ...........................................................................................................3 Eye on Theatre ..............................................................................................................12 Arts & Leisure ................................................................................................................3 Travel ............................................................................................................................13 Calendar .........................................................................................................................6 Government .....................................................................................................................16 Community ....................................................................................................................6 Campaign Trail .............................................................................................................16 Health .............................................................................................................................7 Center on Congress ......................................................................................................17 Film/Cultural Perspectives .............................................................................................8 Public Policy .................................................................................................................18 Music ..............................................................................................................................8 Governance ...................................................................................................................18 Organizing ....................................................................................................................10 Legal Ads ..........................................................................................................................19 Mission Statement The Westchester Guardian is a weekly FeatureSection newspaper devoted to the unbiased MIDDLE EAST FORUM reporting of events and developments that are newsworthy and significant to “long slumber in the darkness of neglect” readers living in, and/or employed in, has ended. “The sun of jihad has risen. The Westchester County. The Guardian Caliph Ibrahim’s Brutal Moment glad tidings of good are shining. Triumph will strive to report fairly, and objec- looms on the horizon.” Infidels are justifiably tively, reliable information without By DANIEL PIPES leader. The caliph became Muhammad’s everywhere” and demands their oath of alle- terrified for, as both “east and west” submit, favor or compromise. Our first duty non-prophetic heir. After the first four giance. All other Muslim governments have Muslims will “own the earth.” will be to the PEOPLE’S RIGHT After an absence of 90 years, caliphs, the office became dynastic. lost legitimacy, he claims. Further, Muslims Grandiloquent words, to be sure, but TO KNOW, by the exposure of truth, the ancient institution of the From the start, followers disagreed must throw out “democracy, secularism, also ones with zero chance of success. ISIS without fear or hesitation, no matter caliphate roared back into whether the caliph should be the most able nationalism, as well as all the other garbage has enjoyed backing from states like Turkey where the pursuit may lead, in the existence on the first day of finest tradition of FREEDOM OF and pious Muslim or the closest relative of and ideas from the West.” and Qatar – but to fight in Syria, not to Ramadan in the year 1435 of THE PRESS. Muhammad; the resulting division came to Reviving the universal caliphate means, establish a global hegemony. Nearby powers the Hegira, equivalent to June 29, 2014. This define the Sunni and Shi’i branches of Islam, announces The Promise of Allah, that the The Guardian will cover news and astonishing revival symbolically culminates Continued on page 3 respectively, causing the profound schism events relevant to residents and busi- the Islamist surge that began forty years ago. that still endures. nesses all over Westchester County. A Western analogy might be declaring the As a weekly, rather than focusing restoration of the Hapsburg Empire, which A single caliphate ruled all the Muslim on the immediacy of delivery more traced its legitimacy to ancient Rome. lands until 750; but then two processes associated with daily journals, we will combined to diminish its power. First, Whence comes this audacious move? instead seek to provide the broader, remote provinces began to break away, with Can the caliphate last? What will its impact more comprehensive, chronological some – such as Spain – even creating rival be? step-by-step accounting of events, caliphates. Second, the institution itself enlightened with analysis, where For starters, a quick review of the decayed and was taken over by slave soldiers appropriate. caliphate (from the Arabic khilafa, meaning and tribal conquerors, so that the original From amongst journalism’s classic “succession”): according to canonical Muslim line of caliphs effectively ruled only until key-words: who, what, when, where, history, it originated in 632 CE, on the death about 940. Other dynasties then adopted the why, and how, the why and how will of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, then title as a perquisite of political power. spontaneously developed, filling the nascent drive our pursuit. We will use our more The institution continued in an abundant time, and our resources, to Muslim community’s need for a temporal enfeebled form for a millennium until, in a get past the initial ‘spin’ and ‘damage control’ often characteristic of imme- dramatic act of repudiation, modern Turkey’s diate news releases, to reach the very founder, Kemal Atatürk, terminated its last heart of the matter: the truth. We will vestiges in 1924. Despite several subsequent take our readers to a point of under- attempts to restore it, the institution became standing and insight which cannot be defunct, a symbol of the disarray in Muslim- obtained elsewhere. majority countries and a yearned-for goal To succeed, we must recognize from among Islamists. the outset that bigger is not neces- And so matters remained for 90 years, sarily better. And, furthermore, we until the group known as the Islamic State will acknowledge that we cannot in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) issued a declaration be all things to all readers. We must in five languages (English version: This Is the carefully balance the presentation of Promise of Allah) proclaiming the founding relevant, hard-hitting, Westchester of a new caliphate under “Caliph” Ibrahim. news and commentary, with features Caliph Ibrahim (aka Dr. Ibrahim Awwad and columns useful in daily living Ibrahim), about 40, hailing from Samarra, and employment in, and around the Doomed Ibrahim Caliphate. Illustration by Iraq, fought in Afghanistan and then Iraq. county. We must stay trim and flexible He now claims to be leader of “Muslims Top - The world as ISIS sees it, using medieval Arabic place names. Bottom - The same map in if we are to succeed. Greg Groesch/The Washington Times. Roman lettering. World ignores Christian Exodus from Islamic World by Raymond Ibrahim, Page 20 THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN ThursdaY, August 14, 2014 Page 3 MIDDLE EAST Caliph Ibrahim’s Brutal Moment CommunityARTS & LEISURE Section Continued from page 2 a painting contractor and EPA lead risk assessor in order to make a living in New – the Kurds, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel (and Artist Profile: Luke Gray York. eventually maybe Turkey too) – regard the Deciphering the Complexity of the Human Spirit Through Imagery Islamic State as an unmitigated enemy, In addition to his 25 group and 14 as do nearly all rival Islamic movements, By LEE DANIELS solo exhibitions to date both in the U.S. and including Al-Qaeda. (The only excep- overseas, Gray has worked as a teacher and Walking into the opening “The subject is the brushstroke, painting’s DNA strand, and its tions: Boko Haram; scattered Gazans; and lecturer, as well as completed several com- of a three-part exhibition a new Pakistani organization.)