What utterly contrasting pieces
The Christopher Hitchens piece is terrible
and the Martin Amis pieces wonderful

first Mr Hitchens
Hitchens' gloss that

As Martin Amis said in the essay that prompted Steyn’s contempt: “What is one to do with thoughts like these?” How does one respond, in other words, when an enemy challenges not just your cherished values but additionally forces you to examine the very assumptions that have heretofore seemed to underpin those values?

well i read the Amis articles and i'm all set to say that Amis didn't mean that he failed to understand that sometimes your intellectual first principles are challenged. I'd been thinking about the Amis quote all day and about the Declaration of Independence's take on its assumptions and first principles "We hold these truths to be self-evident" and about how "all men are created equal" and its definition of men - and how that assumption has been challenged and expanded to mean women, black men and black women etc. and how it is a basic strategy to test and challenge intellectual first principles.

except Hitchens quotes Amis only the quote isn't in the articles pointed to by possible noteworthy and Google couldn't find it either

Mr Hitchens talks about "one-way multiculturalism" but who exactly thinks that multiculturalism is a one way process except the far right. The white far right complain about the death of our racial and cultural purity and that they are doing all the compromising and likewise the Islamist fascists complain about the polution of Western values on the purity of Islam and as Martin Amis points out the West and America specifically as an evil satanic temptress or

As Bernard Lewis puts it in The Crisis of Islam

'This is what is meant by the term the Great Satan, applied to the United States by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Satan as depicted in the Qur'an is neither an imperialist nor an exploiter. He is a seducer, 'the insidious tempter who whispers in the hearts of men' (Qur'an, CXIV, 4, 5).

I was thinking about this and so I thought i'd include a photo of my friend Rupa aka Josh and her blue hair. She is a Leicester girl of Asian decent. She is fluent in Gujarati and a "wild child". She is a masala of cultural memes.

adam wrote:

except Hitchens quotes Amis only the quote isn't in the articles pointed to by possible [sic] noteworthy and Google couldn't find it either

I even went to Lexis-Nexis in search of the Amis quote from the Hitchens piece. It's not there; not even approximately. Surely he didn't intentionally fabricate the quote ?!? Why is it so impossible to reproduce? Who knows.

adam wrote:

My friend Chet ... the one musical piece I wanted to refer you to ... -- The East African Gujarati Company ...

That one was interesting but I found it a bit inaccessible to me. I preferred the Bana Congo piece:

While I'm on the subject of African music, I'd like to recommend The Indestructible Beat of Soweto. An older album, circa 1985/1986, it's really quite excellent. Amazon had this to say:

This is possibly one of the most important collections of South African music to be released off the continent. Before Paul Simon, Sting, and Peter Gabriel started their explorations and exploitations of African music, this stunning set of music was already out there showing the world how it was done in South Africa's townships. Now well-known names like Ladysmith Black Mambazo (before they did candy commercials) and the growling Mahlathini were given their first international hearing. But the real gems are the sounds we never got to hear on Graceland: the raw mandolin and fiddle of Moses Mchunu, the wonderful jive vocals of Amaswazi Emvelo, the loping swing in the voice of Nancy Sedibe, and the fat guitar grooves of Johnson Mkhalali and his band. The collection is a gem, a representation of what was happening on the radio and in the dance clubs of Soweto in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as mbaqanga swept through the country and took everyone with it.

I also like to recommend The Éthiopiques Series, of which my favorite album is probably Volume 7. I also like the more uptempo, at times even manic, recording of "Mhla mhla" by Shyfu Yohannhs on Volume 1. Also worth a listen is "Enem Lefelefkugn Melageruw Sema" on Volume 18.