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The Wikipedia page for Easter carries this warning:

The neutrality of this article is questioned because of its systemic bias. In particular, there may be a strong bias in favor of Christianity.

More Palestinian Wallowing

Unconstructive Jewish temple denial by Palestinians, who've issued a new report claiming that Jerusalem's Western Wall is part of the Al-Aqsa mosque and not a remnant of Herod the Great's expansion of the Second Temple. According to the Jerusalem Post, the official who wrote the report says "that the Jews had never used the site for worship until the Balfour Declaration of 1917."

The argument doesn't wash. Excavations in and around the Old City have revealed many other Herodian structures, including further remnants of his wall. Besides, as we read in Wikipedia:

It has been a site for Jewish prayer and pilgrimage for centuries, the earliest source mentioning Jewish attachment to the site dating from the 4th century.

That would be at least 200 years before Muhammad and Islam.

Some Palestinian experts confine themselves to the more elegant and also scripturally sound argument that their forebears the Canaanites were probably worshiping in the Jebusite city now known as Jerusalem long before the Jews even got there. As for proving Jewish provenance on the Temple Mount, all we have to do is excavate beneath it, which I doubt the Muslim authorities would countenance.

469 Months Of Watergate Is Enough

Still no news on the new Watergate exhibit at the Nixon library? The background on the National Archives-prepared exhibit, opposed by the Nixon foundation and his White House aides, is here. Oddly, the link to the background has been removed from the library's Wikipedia page. Read my thoughts on the controversy here and here and the exhibit's big news here: The dramatic charge by Dwight Chapin (who was jailed for perjury) that Richard Nixon was present when chief of staff Bob Haldeman ordered the creation of a dirty tricks operation for the 1972 reelection campaign.

Grateful For Wikipedia's Discretion

Making my way through el mes de Los Muertos thanks to a friend's gift of an anthology of Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia CDs, I went searching for information about the late Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, blues singer and Hammond B-3 player who shines on Dead songs such as "Hard to Handle" and "Turn On Your Lovelight." About his northern California secondary school education, our cloudopedia is circumspect, taking care not to speak ill of a Dead:

In his early teens, McKernan left Palo Alto High School by mutual agreement with the school's principal.