The word "rumination" was chosen on purpose here, since it has the following meanings:
1. A calm lengthy intent consideration
2. (of ruminants) chewing (the cud)
3. Regurgitation of small amounts of food; seen in some infants after feeding
Noam Chomsky, the Master Mind (MM) of the century, descended to the masses with another interview, this time given to Karim Elsahy, the owner of this blog.
Even a cursory examination of the contents produces enough gems. Here are few of them:
"I mean the level of religious fundamentalism in the United States is beyond any country I know."
Well, that doesn't point to an encyclopedic level of knowledge, but then – why wouldn’t MM talk about something he has not a foggiest idea about? This is not the first time it happens, after all. Nor is it the last, as it is seen from the following hilarious dialog with the interviewer:
(C) “In Egypt for example, is there a problem about teaching evolution in schools?”
(E) “I don’t believe it is actually taught in government schools.”
(C) “I am surprised to hear that.”
(To ensure we are all synchronized here, (C) means Chomsky.)
The next one is also quite good:
“Decade [1990] started with the murder of an archbishop, who was voice of the voiceless and ended with the murder of 6 leading Latin American intellectuals happened to be Jesuit priests, their house keeper, and daughter by an elite battalion armed and trained by the United States who had already slaughters tens of thousands of people. I mean if anything like that happened to Czechoslovakia everybody would know about it. Since it was done by US backed forces, nobody knows about it.”
Nobody, but nobody knows about it – aside of the MM. Sure, let’s proceed.
“What will happen in Egypt depends on the Egyptian phenomenon, and tendency. I don’t see any inherent reason why the Muslim Brotherhood couldn’t be part of the majority part of the democratic culture. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But that for Egypt to work out.”
Indeed - Egyptian phenomenon - Muslim Brotherhood as part of the majority part of the democratic culture… Oh my.
There is a lot of other cud to chew in that endless and, frankly, rumbling monolog.
If we look back into the definition of the word “rumination”, there is definitely a dilemma.
While the interview is calm and lengthy indeed, to call it considerate would be a stretch. And the result is too close to a significant quantity of small and regurgitated amounts of food to match the definition 1.
P.S. The term Master Mind regarding Noam Chomsky is not derogatory - it was used by a dotting reporter from Haaretz who interviewed him.
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