"Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich

As promised, I read Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.

Thoughts:

- A lot of people complain about how this book is blatantly Marxist; I don't think I saw it as such, but she definitely went into her experiment with an agenda to prove rather than being objective. Persuasive and probably a bit biased, but not "blatant liberal propaganda" that many FoxNewists would call it, imo.

- G damn, this chick is annoying. While reading through a few negative reviews of the book, I saw numerous people recount their disgust at her elitist attitude towards the working poor (side note: kinda reminded me of John Perkins' in Confessions of an Economic Hitman with his "I know I did all these bad things but I'm really really sorry! Really!"). Though I did think it was slightly annoying the majority of the time, I usually didn't find it to be that big of a deal -- rich white lady joins the poor? Yea, she's gonna have some issues.

- During the course of her experiment, Ehrenreich refused public transportation (she kept a car and paid for gas, etc) and chose to not split the cost of a housing situation with a roommate. The latter could be seen as a downside of the experiment itself; she stayed in 3 separate locations, each for only a month -- pretty hard to find a roommate for only a month, eh? In times when she couldn't find affordable housing with a kitchenette, she ate fast food. As far as I can remember, she didn't use food stamps.

But a lot of people cited these things in their critiques. They argued that if she had taken those short-cuts in her experiment, as millions of Americans do, she would've been just fine. But I'm wondering about this point -- what should WE consider the minimal living conditions one should be able to procure with a full-time job? If I have a minimum wage job as my sole source of income, do I have the right to expect housing by myself? A car? Groceries? Health insurance? At which point do we have people step in and say "no, these jobs pay too little," or "wth, why don't these employees get better jobs?".

- That was definitely one point that really confused me -- why DIDN'T those people get better jobs? Surely Wal-Mart and such places can't be the only locations for employment, even if you only have an HS diploma -- I've definitely applied to jobs that require no more than that. So what's the deal? There were a number of instances where it was an older mother who was entering the job force later in life because her husband was no longer able to get enough income. Other times, people were limited by lack of transportation


- I'd like to know how many people working minimum wage jobs are doing as a means of their entire income. I don't think I had seen this stat anywhere in the book, but I'd be interested in the numbers, especially considering a lot of the claims she makes in the Evaluation segment of the book (specifically, 60% of the workforce in America makes under $30,000 year -- how many of those are students living at home? or senior citizens supplementing their social security/pensions?). I'd be curious to know.

- I think one of the things that struck me the most was how it seemed like the poor were just barely living on the edge. There was this strong sense of desperation throughout the book, like these people were a medical emergency away from lifelong debt. Or even worse, a sick day away from lacking home food for the week. I am now officially terrified of poverty. Awesome.

Highlights:

"There seems to be a vicious cycle at work here, making ours not just an economy, but culture of extreme inequality."

"It is common, among the nonpoor, to think of poverty as a sustainable condition -- austere, perhaps, but they get by somehow, don't they? They are "always with us." What is harder for the nonpoor to see is poverty as acute distress: The lunch that consists of Doritos or hot dog rolls, leading to faintness before the end of the shift. The "home" that is also a car or a van. The illness or injurty that must be "worked through," with gritted teeth, because there's no sick pay or health insurance and the loss of one day's pay will mean no groceries for the next. These experiences are not part of a sustainable lifestyle, even a lifestyle of chronic deprivation and relentless low-level punishment. They are, by almost any standard of subsistence, emergency situtions. And that is how we should see the poverty of so many millions of low-wage Americans -- as a state of emergency."

Naturally Seven Beat Box Phil Collins' "Feel It (In The Air Tonight)"

Via Subway Blogger, who says:

Just further proof that black guys can make even the whitest songs sound better.

I especially love how all the white people get into it at the end.

Subway Vid
Real Music Video
Original Phil Collins Video

Good lookin' out, deel! I love how after I got this vid, I looked around my room and was incredibly amused by my singing hip hop man, vince carter bobblehead doll and TWO fitty cent singing frogs. exactly what kind of persona am i projecting here?!

Michelle White Illustrations

I like 'em. Via here.

Top 10 WTF NBA Moments in Recent Memory

Decent list. Check it out.


Seriously, though, wt
f

Simpson Stills and Their Reference Movies

The Simpsons is the epitome of pop culture, making reference to tons of movies, tv shows, current events, politics, etc etc. I loved this list comparing stills from The Simpsons and their movie counterparts. Enjoy!

Link/

NYT - "U.S. Muslim Clerics Seek a Modern Middle Ground"

old NYT article about Sheikh Hamza Yusuf and Imam Zaid Shakir, highlighting their importance among the growing Muslim population in the US. I suggest reading the whole article (but I always do) since I heart these guys, but if not, the highlights are pretty lengthy:

Highlights:

Mr. Shakir mixes passages from the Koran with a few lines of rap, and channels accents from ghetto to Valley Girl. Some of his students call him the next Malcolm X — out of his earshot, because he so often preaches the importance of humility.

When it came time for questions, one young man stepped to the microphone and asked: "You said we have an obligation to humanity. Did you mean to Muslims, or to everyone?"

Mr. Shakir responded: "The obligation is to everyone. All of the people are the dependents of Allah."

Mr. Yusuf and Mr. Shakir posed for pictures and signed their CD's, books and DVD's — the two men combined have more than 80 items on the market. A young couple thanked Mr. Yusuf for his CD set on Muslim marriage, saying it had saved theirs. A family from Indonesia asked him to interpret a dream. An older woman from Iraq begged him to contact Muslim scholars in her homeland and correct their misguided teaching.

The American seminary was Mr. Yusuf's idea. His diagnosis of the problem with Islam today is that its followers lack "religious knowledge." Islam, like Judaism, is based in scripture and law that has been interpreted, reinterpreted and debated for centuries by scholars who inspired four schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Mr. Yusuf laments that many of the seminaries that once flourished in the Muslim world are now either gone or intellectually dead. Now, he said, the sharpest Muslim students go into technical fields like engineering, not religion.

He said he believed that if more Muslims were schooled in their faith's diverse intellectual streams and had a holistic understanding of their religion, they would not be so susceptible to the Osama bin Ladens who tell them that suicide bombers are martyrs.

"Where you don't have people who have strong intellectual capacity, you get demagoguery," he said.

Mr. Yusuf once was a source of the kind of zealous rhetoric he now denounces. He said in 1995 that Judaism was based on the belief that "God has this bias to this small little tribe in the middle of the desert," which makes it "a most racist religion." On Sept. 9, 2001, he said the United States "stands condemned" for invading Muslim lands.

He has since changed his tune — not for spin, he says, but on principle. "Our community has failed, and I include myself in that," he told an audience in a downtown theater in Elizabeth, N.J., this year. "When I started speaking in the early 90's, our discourse was not balanced.

"We were focused so often on what was negative about this country," he said. "We ended up alienating some people. I've said some things about other religions that I regret now. I think they were incorrect."

He added: "A tree grows. If you're staying the same, something is wrong. You're not alive."

"The United States is the capital of modernity," Mr. Bah said, "and you have this very traditional Islam, which is 1,400 years old, being taught in this modern world."

While leading a mosque in New Haven in 1992, Mr. Shakir wrote a pamphlet that cautioned Muslims not to be co-opted by American politics. He wrote, "Islam presents an absolutist political agenda, or one which doesn't lend itself to compromise, nor to coalition building."

While he did not denounce Muslims who take part in politics, he pointed out the effectiveness of "extrasystemic political action" — like the "armed struggle" that brought about the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan. A copy of the pamphlet was found in the apartment of a suspect in the first World Trade Center bombing, in 1993. Mr. Shakir says he was questioned by the F.B.I., but had no link to the man, and that was the end of it.

While studying in Syria a few years later, he visited Hama, a city that had tried to revolt against the Syrian ruler, Hafez al-Assad. Mr. Shakir said he saw mass graves and bulldozed neighborhoods, and talked with widows of those killed. He gave up on the idea of armed struggle, he said, "just seeing the reality of where revolution can end."

Asked now about his past, he said, "To be perfectly honest, I don't regret anything I've done or said."

He added, "I had to go through that stage to become the person that I am, and I'm not willing to negate my past."

"Every Muslim who is honest would say, I would like to see America become a Muslim country," [Imam Zaid Shakir] said. "I think it would help people, and if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be a Muslim. Because Islam helped me as a person, and it's helped a lot of people in my community."

Tragedy!

It's happened. Baron Davis, the greatest salafi basketball player of our time, shaved his beard. Haramity ensued.

It depresses me, mostly because I wanted him to go to Winter ALIM in Santa Clara and prove that he has often has the exact same facial expressions as Dr. Jackson. :-/ sigh.

ps - okay okay, relax, the baron isn't really muslim.

"No Virtue Too Small"

All Virtues, Big and Small
Taken from Albalagh

Highlights:

The reward for every good deed is based on the actual goodness in it and only Allah can judge that. That is why even after performing the greatest meritorious acts, our salaf (predecessors) used to be worried whether or not their deeds would be accepted. At the same time they approached even the smallest virtues with the enthusiasm of a desperate person who knows he needs all the help he can get. They had fully understood the message that many seemingly great deeds may not carry much weight in the hereafter because of some inherent flaw that the doer may not even be aware of. Yet it is possible for some apparently minor charitable act to save a believer from hell.

It is beautifully stated in another hadith: "Never belittle any good deed." [la tahqiranna min almaroofe shaea]. We should always remember these golden words of wisdom from the Prophet, Sall-Allahu alayhi wa sallam.

No one who remembers this warning by the Prophet, Sall-Allahu alayhi wa sallam, can do that: "Really frustrated will be the person who follows his own desires (in violation of Allah's commands) yet entertains the wishful thinking that Allah will forgive him."

One may simply say Alhamdu-lillah (Praise be to Allah) with such an intense feeling that it alone tilts the scale in his or her favor in the hereafter.

As the Qur'an mentions: "You thought it to be a light matter while it was most serious in the sight of Allah."[Al-Noor, 24:15].

Small sins, if we become comfortable with them, may lead us to bigger and bigger sins. "The difference between a major and a minor sin is like the difference between a big and a small burning piece of charcoal," says Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi. "Who would willfully pick the burning charcoal with their bare hand because it is small?"

The Qur'an does make a distinction between minor and major sins, but that distinction is meaningful only when the sin just happened, not when it was committed on purpose. A sin, any sin, is by definition an act of disobedience. It may be forgiven when it resulted from human weakness. But when performed with a "so what" attitude, it becomes defiance --- and thus a major sin.

...the cornerstone of this Satanic strategy is the trivialization of both vices and virtues.

Small or big, a virtue is a virtue. I need it.

[Source]

Ramadan, Day 10

[un-proofread ramblings. apologies]

One of the things I love/hate about Islam is how much wiggle room it allows us. Coming into most situations and confrontations, there's a variety of different ways for us to react (see previous post) and rarely can people agree on one specific reaction that would be "most Islamic."

Though, admittedly, this often drives me insane, as it provides little validation that one's actions are Islamically sound. We can always argue, back and forth, about our own justifications for why we chose to act a certain way, but in the end, we no longer have our Nabi (saw) to straighten us out and tell us what the best course of action is.

It makes me jealous. Dr. J discussed in his ALIM @ ISNA lecture (iA I'll type up what little notes I have. maybe.) how we hear so many hadith telling us "if we guard our tongue, then we will enter Jannah (heaven)," or "if we pray with sincerity, then we'll be admitted into The Garden" -- the Prophet (saw) describing one or two characteristics which would guarantee us an eternity of Paradise. Often times, however, this is the Prophet (saw) giving personalized advice in accordance to the questioner's own vices. The Prophet (saw) could see the defects in someone that stood in that person's path to Jannah and he (saw) could therefore prescribe advice urging the person to address the problem. You really, truly, underestimate how jealous that makes me, and how often I've come upon a problem in which I have no idea how to react as it never seems to fit into my preconceived perceptions of Islam.

I've been raised with the (Islamic?) belief that you must ensure that you fulfil the rights others have over you and try to remain unconcerned with what others may owe you (ie, 'ask not what someone else can do for you, but what you must do for them').

The other end of the spectrum is a dangerous slope, and I've seen it happen and see it happen where you reach the point where you become unconcerned with anyone who does nothing for you. I don't want to become that. I'd much rather spend my life trying to maintain some idealistic, altruistic nature, but the older and older I get, the less plausible this lifestyle seems to become. Rather, I spend my time fulfilling some victim role and becoming terrified that this bitterness will one day control me and turn me into the type of person I absolutely despise.

At some point, you HAVE to demand your rights, even from those who seemingly have so many rights over you. But I honestly don't know what that point is. Obviously, one should do so (request/demand one's rights) with the utmost humility and adab, but even that seems to be something that's so lacking in our culture. There's a thin line that separates the selfish from the altruistic and though many would agree that THAT line is where we need to walk, few (myself included) are able to do so. It just seems that everyone (again, I include myself here first) is obsessed with what they're getting out of an agreement, a situation, or relationship, and the Islamic model of "think of others first" can only work in the most ideal circumstances where everyone else adopts the same attitude.

Or maybe (more likely, in fact) the ability to maintain one's ideals in the face of circumstances that constantly test them is a characteristic for which we should all strive.

Was it Ghandi who said "Become the change you wish to see in others"?

Allahu alim (Allah knows best).

Ramadan, Day 6

A close family friend and the mother of a former BFF is back in the hospital, suffering from a relapse of cancer. Please keep her and her family in your Ramadan (and post-Ramadan) duas.

May Allah swt grant her shifa and ease her pain. May He reward her and her family for any suffering or hardship they endure, especially during this month, and expiate any sins they've committed (both knowingly and unknowingly) because of it. Ameen.

Ramadan, Day 5

Today, I discovered (with much help from wad) that Hakeem Olajuwon (a devout Muslim who would fast during day NBA games during Ramadan and one of only 4 NBA players ever recorded to score a quadruple double), may have attained his quadruple double during one of the first few nights of Ramadan that year.

# Hakeem Olajuwon, March 29, 1990, Houston vs. Milwaukee; 18 points, 16 rebounds, 10 assists, 11 blocks.

Though I can't seem to find an exact date for when Ramadan started (*shakes fist at intertubes*), I have reason to believe it was March 27th, 1990.

Coolies.

Ramadan, Day 4

Yes, I'm well aware these posts titles don't coincide with the dates I actually post on the blog. I write them on the day of, and post them later :)

I won't have daily updates -- I'll write when I can, inshaAllah.

I think taraweeh made me sick. On Day 2 or 3, I was praying with a woman to my right who was sick. Right before the start of the next rakaat of taraweeh, the women on her right left the line to get some water or something; the sick woman next to me moved over and subsequently I moved to her former spot. So there, I had to pray taraweeh where the sick woman prayed and, more importantly, make sajdah where the sick lady did sajdah. Life is gross.

Suddenly leaving gaps in the prayer lines (see last post) doesn't seem like such a bad idea. Bleh.

Ramadan, Day 3

Alhumdulillah for the jam-packed masjids. Spilling out of our musallah room, the women stand close together, shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot, facing (in some far-off metaphysical way) the kaabah, uniting together in worship of Allah swt and praying that someone will get a clue and turn on the air conditioner. The heat wasn't unbearable and, in fact, wouldn't even be noticeable to some, if not for the fact that we stand, relatively unmoving, for hours, feeling nothing beyond our internal struggle for concentration in our worship and the sweat slowly forming a fine film over our skin.

Each of the four fans which hang from the low ceiling in the women's area seldom cool more than the 4 women who pray directly under them. While this rarely poses a problem for the 30 or so women who attend taraweeh during the weeknights, it can become an issue when the days are warmer (and the AC hasn't been turned on) and the room is slightly more crowded.

I whisper "Allahu akbar" as I raise my hands to begin the or 12th or 14th pr 16th (who knows at this point?!) rakaat of taraweeh. The woman to my right, graciously seated in a chair under the wind path of a fan, has already started her prayer. The woman 6 or so feet away across the empty space to my left has not, and I assume she's taking a moment to enjoy the breeze under her own fan before she steps over to connect the line. But she never moves over and instead chooses to begin her prayer where she's standing. The people to the left of her don't seem to notice; some simply add to her side of the line, possibly because it's dark and among the crowded jamaat, the area to the left of that woman appears to be the only open spot when one walks in the door. Regardless, they are oblivious to the gaping hole in our jamaat.

It's after we finish our rakaat that there's confrontation. The woman to my right (who prays at least part of the prayer seated, as her age makes it difficult to stand for extended periods of time), turns to the woman a few feet away from me. "You must complete the line!" she says sternly. "Allah will not accept this!"

The woman a few feet away from me looks at her, incredulous. "It's hot!" she says, "and you're sitting under the fan. It's too hot when there's no fan."

"Allah will not accept this! You must move over!" repeats the first woman, beginning to raise her voice and lose any calm she may have initially masqueraded. Their exchange continues, back and forth, for a few more seconds before others graciously offer to fill the empty space. The woman to my right, clearly not satisfied, patrols our row once or twice, ensuring that all gaps are filled, before beginning next rakaah.

I had to think for a while before I finally settled on a reason or two why this exchange bothered me so much. And as I shout the injustices from my pedestal to all those (both of you who read my blog) who will listen, I should preface by saying this is a reminder to myself before anyone else. The first is the harshness with which one woman told the other to move over. "Allah will not allow this!" she had shouted, "He will not accept our prayer!". Correct me if I'm wrong, but proper naseeha is given in private, rather than proclaiming another's mistakes in a crowded room of taraweeh, no? Secondly, it was the expectation of another to do something which you believe -- the woman could have moved her own chair over between rakaats, but instead chose to yell at the other lady to move, without so much as hearing a reason. Third is the issue with the other woman, who leaves gaps in the prayer line because of her own discomfort. If she was insistent on staying under a fan to pray, could she not have kindly requested the other people in line (ie, on the other side of her) to move over? I'm almost positive most would have obliged. Finally, and this struck me more than anything else, is this: the entire incident could not have taken more than a minute and a half of my life. Through the countless hours I've lived, the numberless interactions I've had with people, how many similar incidents could I have been a part of? How similar wrongs could I have committed without even realizing it? May Allah forgive each of us, for the sins we've committed both knowingly and unknowingly. How many times have I hurt someone or violated their rights without even realizing it? Those are sins that not even Allah can forgive; we must seek such forgiveness from the people directly. So if I've ever done anything hurt or offend you, please forgive me. If you'd like to tell or remind me of what I've done so I can apologize more directly, I'll happily oblige. JazakAllah khair, salams :)
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'Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence' By Rev. Martin Luther King

Hey, look! I actually followed up on my 'note to self' ("look into MLK speeches")! Go me!

'Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence' By Rev. Martin Luther King
4 April 1967

Yes, it's pretty long, but really amazing; so well written, eloquent, powerful, beautiful. I highly, highly recommend you read the whole thing. Try to refrain from drawing Iraq/Vietnam parallels (though I think it's kinda inevitable). Yes, I realize the quotes are long as well. You can do it. I believe in you.


Quotes:

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

"If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. "

This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.

The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy -- and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us -- not their fellow Vietnamese --the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go -- primarily women and children and the aged.

They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one "Vietcong"-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them -- mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.

What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only non-Communist revolutionary political force -- the unified Buddhist church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. What liberators?

Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless on Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called enemy, I am as deeply concerned about our troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor.

This is from the last part of the movie "War Made Easy":

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

The entire paragraph with this quote is amazing, but too lengthy to quote in its entirety. Seriously, go read.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit.

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out deperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..." We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

"War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death"

First of all, props to the RagTag for keeping me up to date on the under-the-radar movies I would've otherwise missed. Second props to video.google for hosting the entire movie and NOT having it be in 121321 parts.

War Made Easy (Video)

War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged ... all » the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations.

Notes:
- Remember that just about everything you read/watch is biased, but that doesn't make it any less potentially amazing. Watch it with a critical eye.
- Being a big hater on the media, I loved this documentary. A lot of it probably won't (or shouldn't) be news to you; in reality, they really just explore the same tactics used to begin/continue popular opinion of a war.
- It made me realize I had never written about/reviewed the books I read in Pakistan (namely, 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman') on the blog. I'll have to get on that.
- I liked the point made about how the media begins to simply report what the government says ("government officials tell us..."), as though those officials are the ones with who create the biased picture that has to be portrayed to the nation.
- Man, the Phil Donahue thing was freaky. The whole "we'll make you feel like a traitor if you don't support the war" bit made me think of Jon Stewart. Which subsequently made me swoon, a little.
- The section on civilian casualties was nauseating:

(paraphrased) "During WWI, 10% of all casualties were civilian. During WWII, the number rose to 50%. In Vietnam, 70% of all casualties were civilian. In this Iraq war, civilian casualties comprise 90% of the death toll"

1. I'd like to know how they defined 'civilian,' particularly in the Iraq war. Though I have no doubt the number is ridiculously high, it seems that, at the very least in the Iraq war, it's difficult to distinguish between civilians and combatants.
2. Can someone find me their source for these numbers? I can't go around quoting without a source! Thanks.
- Hey, look, it's also a book.
- Note to self: Look into collections of MLK speeches.

Ramadan, Day 1

The first salaat of Ramadan is like drowning. Falling to my knees, letting my forehead gracefully flow to the floor. “Subhana rabbi-al-Allah, subhana rabbi-al-Allah, subhana rabbi-al-Allah,” I whisper into janamaz. Slowly and softly. With such internal clarity. But already, I feel the danger, even seconds into the initial plunge. I can almost hear the chains rattling, the eternal menace angrily pacing his cage. He bides his imprisonment, never content with his handiwork of the past year and always eager to wreak more havoc on souls. While he broods in his cell, we’re left to battle the shadows he’s imprinted on our hearts. Is 30 days enough to repair the damage? Salvation can be a virtue of time, provided we don’t waste the opportunity.

Ramadan, Day 0

On the authority of Abu Hurayrah [Ahmad and Nasa'i transmitted it.]

Allah's Messenger said, "Ramadan, a blessed month, has come to you during which Allah has made it obligatory for you to fast. In it the gates of Heaven are opened, the gates of al-Jahim are locked, and the rebellious devils are chained. In it Allah has a night which is better than a thousand months. He who is deprived of its good has indeed suffered deprivation." [Tirmidhi]

It seems impossible that an entire year has passed since the moon rose marking the ending of our last Ramadan. Through December and March July August, we marveled at how quickly our holy month was flying through the years of our western calendars. Through the blooms of April to the chill of January, Ramadan now begins in September and many among us are already nervous at the impending prospect of a month in the long summer hours spent fasting for our Lord, for the sake of our souls.

I thought through the last year, the anxious sleepless nights, the reformed friendships, the stress, the laughter, my friends’ weddings, my friends’ babies. subhanAllah, how amazing that another year has flown by and we’re blessed enough to stand on the threshold of yet another glorious, amazing opportunity to wipe our slates clean once more. With shaytaan locked away, the only thing left holding us back is the plaque with which he’s stained our hearts and the shadows of him that we’ve allowed into our habits, lives and, naudubillah, souls.

I walk to the bathroom and slowly make wudu, examining my dripping face in the mirror when I’m done. At 23, how many wrinkles have developed since the last time I took the time to repent? Picking up my dust-covered Quran, I recognize my faltering recitation and deteriorating tajweed. “This year, I will read at least one page of Quran every day,” I had said. Just a page. My stomach turns a bit and my cheeks blush with embarrassment, guilt and disappointment at myself. Depressed, I put my Quran away, wiping the cover with care, and lay down my janamaz to sit facing quibla. “This year, I will not miss a prayer. Ya Allah, forgive me for those that I have missed, both intentionally and unintentionally,” I had whispered into my wet palms, cupping the tears that had fallen and fallen and fallen off my face. Shameful.

I sit and, one by one, recount the resolutions I had made that seemed so simple at the time. “I will learn to control my anger, especially with my family,” “I will be more helpful around the house,” “I will make my parents happy.” How much had I accomplished? Given the time granted to me, an ENTIRE YEAR, how little I seem to have accomplished. Could I say for sure that I am a better person now than I was a year ago?

Another opportunity has fallen into my lap. Every day, I am given a chance at forgiveness by sincere repentance... with the prospect of another Ramadan, mountains of rewards are compounded to the deal. It is important to remember that the last days of Ramadan have not been promised to us; we’re blessed to reside through even a part of this month. Another chance, another opportunity, another cascade of mercy and blessings and love, another life is thrown to our path. The choice is ours, whether or not we take it.

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

Amazon: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

I got a little lost in the detailed plot, especially since I fell in love with the writing style (thank you, awesome translator). Way too much sex in the novel, but it's about love so I suppose I can understand that (I don't, really, considering the situations, but whatever). Beautifully written; I enjoyed it, but need a second read, I think.

Oh! And while I was looking for the name of the author online, I found out there's a film adaptation set to come out towards the end of November. So go read the book first :)


Snippets I enjoyed (mostly from the first half of the book; the latter half I finished in a night or so):

In summer an invisible dust as harsh as red-hot chalk was blown into even the best protected corners of the imagination by mad winds that took the roofs off the houses and carried away children through the air.

They had just celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, and they were not capable of living for even an instant without the other, or without thinking about the other, and that capacity diminished as their age increased. Neither could have said if their mutual dependence was based on love or convenience, but they had never asked the question with their hands on their hearts because both had always preferred not to know the answer.

In reality, they were distracted letters, intended to keep the coals alive without putting her hand in the fire, while Florentino Ariza burned himself alive in every line.

One rainy afternoon, the two of them were in the office his father kept in the house; he was drawing larks and sunflowers with colored chalk on the tiled floor, and his father was reading by the light shining through the window, his vest unbuttoned and elastic armbands on his shirt sleeves. Suddenly he stopped reading to scratch his back with a long-handled back scratcher that had a silver hand on the end. Since he could not reach the spot that itched, he asked his son to scratch him with his nails, and as the boy did so, he had a strange sensation of now feeling his own body. At last his father looked ta him over his shoulder with a sad smile.

“If I died now,” he said, “you would hardly remember me when you are my age.”

He had said it for no apparent reason, and the angel of death hovered for a moment in the cool shadows of the office and flew out again through the window, leaving a trail of feathers fluttering in his wake, but the boy did not see them.

She herself had not realized that every step she took from her house to school, every spot in the city, every moment of her recent past, did not seem to exist except by the grace of Florentino Ariza. Hildebranda pointed this out to her, but she did not admit it because she never would have admitted the Florentino Ariza, for better or for worse, was the only thing that had ever happened to her in her life.

Ric Bell

typographic artist. same spiel.

http://www.ricbellnthat.co.uk/

I enjoyed the Trisco stuff, Three Cubed, Lunar Phase Calendar, NSPCC, Pete Coe, I Stopped..., and the latter two in the ISTD 2006 Lecture Series. the end. bye.

Calvin & Hobbes

Hey! (Almost) all the C&H, ever!

Check it out.

Marian Bantjes Artwork

Remember when I stumbled on this weeks ago and then never wrote anything about it? J, don't bother reading the rest.

I really like this chick's work. She does a lot of typographic-calligraphy and has been featured in numerous magazines, books, art displays, etc. Basically, she's pretty awesome.

Check out her projects, though I'm personally a bigger fan of her older work (from, say, pages 2 and 3)

TDS - Three Generations of “America to the Rescue”

In perhaps the most brilliant segment on “The Daily Show” I’ve ever seen, last night Jon ran through the last three decades of United States intervention in the Middle East to show how incoherent, ass-backwards and counter-productive it has been.

Link to Video

One of the commenters (-ors? i dunno) from the site: "Your average ditto-head doesn’t want to hear history lessons. It’s easier just to say they hate us for our freedom. If you can figure out a way to condense decades of history into a catch phrase that fits on a bumper sticker, people might get it."

so sad, so true.