Chapter Three: SLAVE

After Teteotcingo’s funeral, Queen Cimatl asked to see her daughter. “Malinali, there is something you must know,” the Queen said. “A kingdom requires a king - and now Paynala no longer has one. So I have decided to marry the brother of my sister’s husband, Cohuixin. I must, you realize, always put the interests of Paynala and its people first.”

Malinali was so stunned she lost her composure and blurted, “The Lizard-Man? You are going to marry the Lizard-Man!? (Cohuixin meant “lizard” - obviously Malinali was not very fond of him.) Mother - how can you insult our people, insult me - insult yourself! - and insult the memory of King Teteotcingo this way?”

Queen Cimatl insouciantly responded. “It will soon be King Cohuixin - and he will be your king, and your father. The decision is done.”

Malinali exploded. “You are only fooling yourself, Mother, if you think I will ever regard the Lizard-Man as my King - much less my Father!” Suddenly, though, the young Princess saw the image of her father in her mind, and thought, “My father would not lose his temper in such a situation - calm down and think clearly, Malinali - right now!”

Europe is in crisis. It is depopulating because of birthrates well below replacement. Weighted down by oppressive taxes and onerous regulations, the economies of the major European nations are barely growing. Pessimism reigns.

Yet there are the little flickers of light in the form of bright and energetic young people pushing constructive change, and increasing public recognition from some European leaders that the present course is unsustainable.

In times of crisis, some nations find a Ronald Reagan, a Winston Churchill, or a Margaret Thatcher. If one looks closely at the increasing political divisions in France, Germany and Italy, it is now possible to imagine a future Continental version of Mrs. Thatcher or President Reagan.

You first learned in The CIA in Deep Qaaqaa last October about a group of left-wing “Rogue Weasels” that incoming CIA Director Porter Goss was purging from Langley.

It’s important to understand that the CIA has been a left-wing outfit since the 1970s. The Watergate Scandal was pretty much a coup to oust Richard Nixon from the White House conducted in a cooperative effort by the CIA left-wingers, the Democrat Party, and the Media. This same cabal thinks it can conduct a similar coup against George Bush and Karl Rove over the ridiculous Plamegate nonsense.

Problem is, Bush is smarter than Nixon, the bloggers are smarter than Old Media, and Porter Goss is smarter than the Weasels. In fact, many of the Weasels are unbelievably stupid. Take ex-CIA analyst Larry Johnson...

Chapter Two: PRINCESS

Malinali giggled. It was the kind of squeal and squeak that only a little girl who is deliriously happy can have. She was hiding behind a curtain in her father’s palace.

“Ixkakuk! Ixkakuk!” her father called out, using his nickname for her, meaning Beautiful Goddess. “Where are you? I can’t find you!” He crept up to the curtain. “But when I do, I’m going to?” he grabbed the bulge in the curtain? “tickle you to death!”

The little girl’s shrieks of mirth rang through the palace. King Teteotcingo released his grip, and Malinali raced away across the throne room laughing and yelling, her father chasing after her. The uproar reached the ears of Malinali’s mother, Queen Cimatl, in an adjoining chamber attended by her courtiers. She sighed disapprovingly. “You would think the King would have more important matters of state to attend to than to play with little girls.”

A private Israeli intelligence service reports that Al Qaeda is shifting more than 1,000 of its operatives from Iraq for terror offensives in Europe and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The countries it named as targeted were Britain, Italy, France, Denmark, Russia -- with the UK and Italy at the top of the list; and in the Middle East, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Note the US is not on the list.

One reason is that, except in liberal news reports, the war in Iraq has been going poorly for Al Qaeda.

We initiate this week a new feature in To The Point: the serialization of a novel I am writing entitled The Jade Steps.

Every week from now on until completion, there will be a successive chapter. We begin today with Chapter One: Casa Colorada. This is a historical novel, the true story of one of history’s most remarkable and influential women. Her life sounds like a fairy tale, but it’s history, it actually happened. Her name was Malinali.

The Jade Steps has a two-fold purpose. The first is to tell Malinali’s story, as fascinating as it is unknown. The second is to bring peace to the civil war raging in the soul of Mexico. I hope you all enjoy it. --- JW


Chapter One: CASA COLORADA

Not quite two years ago, in Terrorism and Tiny Zibbs, I discussed why one of the principal causes of Moslem terrorism is that so many Moslem men are afraid of women.

This was made quite evident in a London Daily Telegraph poll of British Moslems conducted last week that stunned the British. 24% of British Moslems, it turns out, are sympathetic with the feelings and motives of the suicide bombers attacking London, and almost one-third believe that: “Western society is decadent and immoral and that Moslems should seek to bring it to an end.”

The outrage this provoked caused most folks to overlook the poll’s internals, which showed that the great majority of those alienated British Moslems are men. Very few British Moslem women want to bring Western society to an end, for that society respects them as full human beings and gives them freedom to act as such.

So all this soul-searching navel-gazing blather in the British liberal press agonizing over the failure of British society to cure Moslem alienation utterly misses the point - as liberals almost unfailingly do. The fault, the blame, the cause of Moslem terrorism, hatred, and alienation lie not with us in the West, but with the cultural defects of Moslems themselves - and specifically of Moslem men.

Let’s say a young white fellow is caught entering a New York subway station by a watchful policeman, who discovers 50 pounds of high explosives in his backpack. Upon interrogation, the fellow explains he was instructed to blow up the station by the Holy Cheendon, whose voice he hears in his head, because for doing so the Cheendon will send him to Paradise located in the Andromeda Galaxy.

Such a fellow would not be a Moslem crazy, just plain crazy. But what if there is something specifically screwed up in his brain that’s making him crazy - and it is this same something that turns some Moslems into suicidal terrorists?