The brilliant installation pictured above, as reported by Lisa Goldman, was up for about 5 hours in one of Tel Aviv’s streets before it came down, perhaps fulfilling in this instance the hopeful prediction by the artist, Ehud Segev: “… in general I am against walls. They always fall in the end.”

Ehud went on to say, “In the meantime, [walls] just create disconnects and misunderstandings between people.”

Create? … or are created by? The causal structure is not entirely clear to me.

(This post is brought to you by the egg and the chicken.)

CBCtelevision has been running promos for the upcoming sitcom: Little Mosque on the Prairie, which premieres Tuesday Jan 9th at 2030 EST on CBC. The clips suggest that it could be funny. I am definitely going to tune in, but I’m hoping it’ll only be a half-hour affair, cause the time slot at 2100 is currently reserved by House.

update (Jan 11th): I watched the premiere last night, and it is quite funny — sitcom funny.

If this money was distributed amongst every single living person on the face of this planet, each would get 53 US$ and change (and counting.)

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) has elected Dr Ingrid Mattson (a woman) as its (first woman) president. This is news, of course, because she’s a woman. She is also Canadian born, and a revert. But let’s go back to the woman part. After all, the message I see emphasized here is that there is no glass ceiling in Islam, or at least in ISNA. Now, obviously, I have no way of knowing the electoral’s electorate’s intentions. So let me assume the best, and hope that this is not just for show. After all (from what I could tell watching her interviews on faith and values after 9-11, and The News Hour after the Denmark cartoons) she’s obviously an intelligent woman, with a great attitude and reasonable ideas. (She’s also a UWaterloo alumni, with a BA in philosophy.)

Laila Lalami argues:

Muslim women are used as pawns by Islamist movements that make the control of women’s lives a foundation of their retrograde agenda, and by Western governments that use them as an excuse for building empire. These women have become a politicized class, prevented by edicts and bombs from taking charge of their own destinies. The time has come for the pawns to be queened.

Agree or not, the article is worth a careful read.

via rockslinga.

More videos are appearing on google about people converting to islam. This one is a documentary produced by channel 4, and posted by turntoislam.com about Texans converting. My favorite excerpt from this video is a Texan woman answering a question about whether one could be muslim and Texan at the same time — watch!

Turns out that turntoislam.com has a collection of these, including one produced by the bbc called “A muslim in the family” about converts in the UK.

The question that kept resonating in my head as I was watching is this: which islam are these people converting to / who’s teaching it to them?

( … when your Lord said to the angels “I am appointing, on Earth, a vicegerent”, they said “wilt You appoint on it one who will corrupt it and shed blood .. ?”*) What did they base their assesment on? — albeit limited knowledge, as it were, for the verse later says that ( [God] said: “I know what you know not”).

These questions never cease to puzzle me — what is it that the angels knew that brought them to their conclusion, and what is it that they didn’t know that is supposedly the elevator of the human from a primarily mischief-causing creature to fulfilling the intended status — God’s vicegerent?

*Quran verse 2:30 — please consult your favorite translation, or even better, the original text.

If peace does not come to Aceh…I’m afraid we will be destroyed worse than by the tsunami…Everything here begins with peace.”

Rufriadi,
a prominent Acehnese human rights lawyer. (via KAIROS)

The news of a peace deal between Aceh (Gam) rebels and the Indonesian goverenment, after about 6 months of talks, is being received with cautious optimism. After all, the last deal lasted for mere 6 months. This time around, however, things should be different. For one thing, last year’s tsunami (undoubtly) has factored in the priorities for people in the region. Below are excerpts from news articles shedding some light on the role of the tsunami (and the reconstruction effort in its wake) in forcing peace:
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why is that?
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