Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Beauty is where you find it.

One beautiful thing I'm contemplating today is BSU's win over TCU in the Fiesta Bowl last night.

But, this post is about Iraq. I was listening to NPR this morning, and heard an article about an Iraqi artist who paints Iraqi scenes of beauty, and doesn't portray the bad things happening there.

When I was there I'd occasionally run across a poster or calendar picturing an idyllic image of a classical Arab, bejeweled and wearing beautiful Arab clothing, usually in a lush setting with palm trees and flowers. These were always paintings.

We could get 2 or 3 local Iraqi TV stations, and I liked to watch them from time to time. One of them would fill empty air time by showing tranquil tableaus. Our local public TV station does the same; you can see flowers and high mountain lakes and icy streams, all displayed delightfully.

The Iraqi scene I remember the most was a small waterfall flowing into a stream, very grassy and dotted with flowers. Oh, yeah, and littered with trash. That's what really struck me. The prettiest scene they chose to show also showed the trash and litter that was everywhere in the country.

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