Old Fashion Power Politics

Tell me what you think of this Time magazine article on today's funeral. Especially interesting is this paragraph:

...to a foreign observer, there was something startling about Friday's medieval pageantry. Inside the Maronite Catholic Cathedral of St. George, Lebanon's great and good gathered with their armed entourages in tow, like feudal barons reaffirming alliances over the body of a fallen comrade. Amid the burning incense and chants in arcane Assyrian, bishops stood beside generals, cowled monks hovered near women wearing black suits and sunglasses, in an epic panorama of old fashioned power politics.

Fascinating!

Update: My friend Joumana thinks that the author of this article, Andrew Butters is incompetent.