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COPYRIGHT 2005 Kurdish Library
The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup
Were playing in the garden when the Bunny gamboled up; They looked upon the Creature with a loathing undisguised-- It wasn't Disinfected and it wasn't Sterilized. They said it was a Microbe and a Hotbed of Disease; They steamed it in a vapor of a thousand-odd degrees; They froze it in a freezer that was cold as Banished Hope And washed it in permanganate with carbolated soap. In sulphurated hydrogen they steeped its wiggly ears; They trimmed its frisky whiskers with a pair of hard-boiled shears; They donned their rubber mittens and they took it by the hand And elected it a member of the Fumigated Band. There's not a Micrococcus in the garden where they play; They bathe in pure iodoform a dozen times a day; And each imbibes his rations from a Hygienic Cup-- The Bunny and the Baby and the Prophylactic Pup. Arthur Guiterman, 1906
In his Incidents of Travel in Greece Turkey Russia and Poland, published in 1839, J.S. Stephens penned these sentiments: "The Turks are a sufficiently intelligent people, and cannot help feeling the superiority of strangers. Probably the immediate effect may be to make them prone rather to catch the faults and vices than the virtues of Europeans; but afterwards better things will come; they will fall into our better ways; and perhaps, though that is almost more than we dare hope for, they will embrace a better religion."
In Winston's Folly: Imperialism and the Creation of Modern Iraq, historian Christopher Catherwood challenges such presumptions: "There are few places where the ingrained assumption of western...
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