For the past week or so I've been thinking about writing an okay-i-missed-world-blog-day-so-let-me-make-it-up-later post. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that Planet Grenada can already be an odd hub for different communities. (Progressive, Black, Latino, Muslim) So this may be a bit of a cop out but I'd like to firstly like to point out that if folks are feeling like exploring something new, they could just click on a button they haven't clicked before.
However to stay in the spirit of World Blog Day I'll still highlight five blogs
Brown Rab Girl Fish is a cool blog on the Progressive Blog Alliance roll. I like her emphasis on race, culture and politics. And she has some really good "funky-ass" links. (Along with Left End of the Dial she is probably my favorite blogger on that blogroll)
For some south of the border bloggin' check out Elenamary - de aquí y de allá - Irish Xicana in Ohio Ponders who keeps a nice roll of blogeros y blogeras.
Negrophile is an award-winning Black blog who has some nicely written stuff and a good set of black blog links.
Anarcho Akbar a Muslim blog with a real political slant. I think he's still figuring stuff out (as am I from a certain point of view). Seems really thoughtful, interesting.
Abdul-Rahim Borges When I started blogging, I thought to myself... I didn't want to be the kind of personal self-absorbed blogger who has entries like "Tuesday I had Fruit Loops". I don't want to say this cat is like that. But I think it is cool that he is able put in "alot" of stuff about his day-to-day life and still make it interesting. He's really young. A sincere struggling Muslim. Also with some "Latin" content on his blog which I like.
Check 'em out.
Friday, September 09, 2005
Thursday, September 08, 2005
another piece on prison islam
PRISON HAS THE BODY, BUT ALLAH HAS THE SPIRIT (an excerpt from the NY Times, July 2, 1992)
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
mercy and wrath
Sahih Muslim
Book 37, Number 6626:
Book 37, Number 6626:
Abu Huraira reported that Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: When Allah created the creation as He was upon the Throne, He put down in His Book: Verily, My mercy predominates My wrath.
mother and child
I was thinking more about the idea of how Allah's mercy in Islam might be associated with a "feminine" side and found the following hadith:
Sahih Muslim
Book 037, Number 6635:
Sahih Muslim
Book 037, Number 6635:
'Umar b. Khattab reported that there were brought some prisoners to Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) amongst whom there was also a woman, who was searching (for someone) and when she found a child amongst the prisoners, she took hold of it, pressed it against her chest and provided it suck. Thereupon Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: Do you think this woman would ever afford to throw her child in the Fire? We said: By Allah, so far as it lies in her power, she would never throw the child in Fire. ' Thereupon Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: Allah is more kind to His servants than this woman is to her child.
do you know what it means to lose new orleans
originally published on Sunday, September 4, 2005 by the New York Times Do You Know What it Means to Lose New Orleans? by Anne Rice
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
so was there a burqa competition?
I honestly don't know what to say. Maybe the folks at Qiyamah Forecast will pick-up on it and give it a funny caption (they've actually been kind of dormant for a while but I have a hard time believing it is because there is not enough qiyamah-worthy stuff going on in the world) How could they have missed the Crowning of the First Muslim woman as Miss England I sort of want to say its a good thing, and then I sort of don't. What do y'all think?
prison islam
The movie South Central was on BET tonight. It's been years since I've seen the whole movie from beginning to end. All I caught was the scene where Ali (the presumably Muslim inmate) defends Bobby (the main character) from being raped by the Aryans.
The scene also reminded me of a fact which I've mentioned here before. Without any exageration, one of the most humane and sympathetic portrayals of Muslims on tv has been the HBO series Oz, where all the Muslims are inmates in a prison! (And South Central probably comes in second.) Instead of being stereotyped as fanatical single-minded violent terrorists, the prison Muslims which appear on film and tv are often shown as principled (invariably African-American) men striving to live righteously in an overwhelmingly negative environment. Occasionally overzealous, but generally sincere. Even when they are flawed, they still are more Malcolm X than Detroit Red.
I say all of this as a preface to a recent article from alt.muslim:
Rehabilitating Islam's Prison Image by Shahed Amanullah which goes into some of the real-life positive changes which Islam is bringing about in the lives of inmates.
Ali: We all know Bobby here a man. He a man, so nobody punking nobody here. Am I right, Buddha? Buddha, do you, or do you not recognize this is a man standing here?
The scene also reminded me of a fact which I've mentioned here before. Without any exageration, one of the most humane and sympathetic portrayals of Muslims on tv has been the HBO series Oz, where all the Muslims are inmates in a prison! (And South Central probably comes in second.) Instead of being stereotyped as fanatical single-minded violent terrorists, the prison Muslims which appear on film and tv are often shown as principled (invariably African-American) men striving to live righteously in an overwhelmingly negative environment. Occasionally overzealous, but generally sincere. Even when they are flawed, they still are more Malcolm X than Detroit Red.
I say all of this as a preface to a recent article from alt.muslim:
Rehabilitating Islam's Prison Image by Shahed Amanullah which goes into some of the real-life positive changes which Islam is bringing about in the lives of inmates.
chuck d on katrina
Chuck D on Katrina: Hell No We Ain't Alright courtesy of Adisa Banjoko at Holla at a Scholar. I wonder how much time it takes most rappers to put a decent song together. Maybe we'll be seeing a Hurricane Katrina benefit album, with Kanye and Chuck D but heavy on groups from the dirty, dirty...
Monday, September 05, 2005
what's up with blog spam?
There is a Philip K. Dick short story (I'm blanking on the name right now) about how in the future there will be so much economic pressure to sell things and companies will go to greater and greater lengths to present ads to consumers such that privacy and peace and quiet virtually disapper. If I remember right, it gets so bad that the main character ends up leaving the planet just to get away from the commercials. In fact, that was probably the inspiration for how in the film Minority Report (also based on a Philip K. Dick short story) the computerized billboards gave people retina scans and personalized their sales pitch to each potential customers. Well... we are quite that bad... yet. But we are getting there...
As for the here and now.... I'm happy to get supportive comments on my blog. I'm even happy to get critical negative comments on my blog (hey, at least folks are reading it). But gettings ads which are disguised as comments are starting to annoy me.
As for the here and now.... I'm happy to get supportive comments on my blog. I'm even happy to get critical negative comments on my blog (hey, at least folks are reading it). But gettings ads which are disguised as comments are starting to annoy me.
black orpheus
I rememeber back in college I was taking a class on Philosophy, Race and Racism. One of the readings included the introduction to a famous collection of negritude Poetry called Black Orpheus. The author (Jean-Paul Sartre) was pretty deep. He was saying that the French language was made for French people. White French People. For centuries upon centuries the language was designed to express, reflect and support their history, their experience, their ideas, their feelings and emotions, their point of view. And so when Black people use French to talk about their own lives, they are using French for a purpose it was never meant for, so the the language can't help but break and crack and come out as poetry. I like that.
wickedary
Another book I am currently grazing through is Wickedary (the link is to an online version) by Mary Daly. In fact, I was thinking about it alot when I wrote my decolonized tongue entry. It is hard to explain but Wickedary is basically is an attempt to remake the English language according to feminist principles. New words are created. Old words are given new meanings, new spellings, new etymologies. My words can't really do it justice. Check it out.
islam and the divine feminine
a brief exploration of the feminine side of God in Islam, especially through the words of the Sufis. It takes a kind of syncretic approach which gives me reservations but it definitely makes interesting reading.
jesus and the virgin mary in islam
Jesus and the Virgin Mary in Islam is a brief summary of some of the Quranic verses on the subject by Juan Galvan from LADO (Latino American Dawa Organization).
Sunday, September 04, 2005
the once and future goddess
In a roundabout way, this is part of a follow-up on the Mary stuff I was blogging about earlier:
These days I'm grazing through a couple of related books. One is called the Once and Future Goddess by Elinor W. Gadon which looks at religion from the Paleolithic period to the modern day and highlights and describes different forms of Goddess worship.
The general claim is that while many ancient humans worshiped a male (Judeo-Christian) God, a Sky Father who is distinct from creation, and who reinforces a male-dominated patriarchal social order, originally a more prevalent and older kind of religion worshiped a female Goddess, an Earth Mother who is more intimately related to creation. The world comes out of her. She represents, among other things, the sanctity of human reproduction, and presumably affirms either a matriarchal or an egalitarian social order. I remember many years ago having a conversation with someone who was telling me that way back in the day before folks completely understood the birds and the bees, the fact that women could produce new life was a pretty amazing thing and so societies tended to be matriarchal. (I happen to think its still pretty amazing.) But then later on when men figured out they had something to do with it too, some of the wonder and amazement went away.
The book tells the story of how Goddess worship has existed in different civilizations around the world, and was often suppressed by the male God worshippers. But then the book also goes into how Goddess worship has managed to survive, resist and re-emerge in modern times. And Gadon actually mentioned the Virgen de Guadalupe (along with the cult of the Black Madonnas, and Marian devotion in general) as forms of Goddess worship within Christianity.
I get the feeling that Gadon would probably lump Islam in as a patriarchal male God worshipping religion but as a Muslim, I would have two main responses.
Firstly, I find Islam to be very clear when it comes to saying that God is ultimately beyond the capacity of human language to adequately describe. He is not like anything in creation, so in particular, orthodox Muslims would insist that God is neither male nor female. Anyone who says differently is standing on shaky theological ground.
Secondly, since we can't help but use human language and images to talk about God, it is worth noting that some of the theological imagery and language which comes up in Islam is POWERFULLY feminine.
For example, every sura of the Quran (except one) begins with the widespread Islamic invocation "Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim" (In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate) and these common names for Allah (ar-Rahman, ar-Rahim) are both etymologically related to the concept of womb.
If you are interested, a really good resource for further information about this feminine aspect of God is the book The Tao of Islam: A soucebook on gender relationships in Islamic thought.
In any case, it definitely seems inappropriate to set up "Allah" as a male God in competition with the "Goddess". Instead, there is only one Supreme Being. Muslims try to approach that Supreme Being by following Islam, while in modern times, certain neo-Pagans are trying to approach that same Supreme Being in a very different way.
These days I'm grazing through a couple of related books. One is called the Once and Future Goddess by Elinor W. Gadon which looks at religion from the Paleolithic period to the modern day and highlights and describes different forms of Goddess worship.
The general claim is that while many ancient humans worshiped a male (Judeo-Christian) God, a Sky Father who is distinct from creation, and who reinforces a male-dominated patriarchal social order, originally a more prevalent and older kind of religion worshiped a female Goddess, an Earth Mother who is more intimately related to creation. The world comes out of her. She represents, among other things, the sanctity of human reproduction, and presumably affirms either a matriarchal or an egalitarian social order. I remember many years ago having a conversation with someone who was telling me that way back in the day before folks completely understood the birds and the bees, the fact that women could produce new life was a pretty amazing thing and so societies tended to be matriarchal. (I happen to think its still pretty amazing.) But then later on when men figured out they had something to do with it too, some of the wonder and amazement went away.
The book tells the story of how Goddess worship has existed in different civilizations around the world, and was often suppressed by the male God worshippers. But then the book also goes into how Goddess worship has managed to survive, resist and re-emerge in modern times. And Gadon actually mentioned the Virgen de Guadalupe (along with the cult of the Black Madonnas, and Marian devotion in general) as forms of Goddess worship within Christianity.
I get the feeling that Gadon would probably lump Islam in as a patriarchal male God worshipping religion but as a Muslim, I would have two main responses.
Firstly, I find Islam to be very clear when it comes to saying that God is ultimately beyond the capacity of human language to adequately describe. He is not like anything in creation, so in particular, orthodox Muslims would insist that God is neither male nor female. Anyone who says differently is standing on shaky theological ground.
Secondly, since we can't help but use human language and images to talk about God, it is worth noting that some of the theological imagery and language which comes up in Islam is POWERFULLY feminine.
For example, every sura of the Quran (except one) begins with the widespread Islamic invocation "Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim" (In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate) and these common names for Allah (ar-Rahman, ar-Rahim) are both etymologically related to the concept of womb.
If you are interested, a really good resource for further information about this feminine aspect of God is the book The Tao of Islam: A soucebook on gender relationships in Islamic thought.
In any case, it definitely seems inappropriate to set up "Allah" as a male God in competition with the "Goddess". Instead, there is only one Supreme Being. Muslims try to approach that Supreme Being by following Islam, while in modern times, certain neo-Pagans are trying to approach that same Supreme Being in a very different way.
constantine: screenplay
I mentioned the movie Constantine when I blogged on the Da Vinci Code a while back. But since Manrilla had mentioned recently it I felt moved to include a link to the screenplay (at least an early version of it). I was hoping to find a script of The Prophecy as well, but no luck for the moment.
"i don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees"
nabbed from Left Side of the Dial
Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.
When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.
National Geographic, October 2004
Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.
When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.
National Geographic, October 2004
the power of live television...
wow... i just happened to be flipping channels last night and caught Kanye West's speech during the Hurricane Katrina benefit on television. Not the most eloquent but his heart was in the right place. I wonder what the teleprompter wanted him to say... I also hope that instead of stopping with off the cuff comments on a national "open mike", someone like him pushes the music industry to be more conscious in general.
Transcript of remarks
More on Davey D's hip-hop site
Transcript of remarks
More on Davey D's hip-hop site
Friday, September 02, 2005
the manrilla blog
I've already borrowed material from this blog before, but I just now put him on my blogroll and also wanted to introduce y'all to how cool his blog is with the following two entries:
Why are we Muslim?
The Changing Mood of Islam in America
Why are we Muslim?
The Changing Mood of Islam in America
Thursday, September 01, 2005
news from izzy mo
A couple of Katrina entries from Izzy Mo's Blog (the author is a Muslim woman from New Orleans who managed to get away to Atlanta)
U.S. MUSLIMS DESIGNATE FRIDAY AS 'HURRICANE RELIEF DAY'
How You Can Help
Hurricane Katrina
U.S. MUSLIMS DESIGNATE FRIDAY AS 'HURRICANE RELIEF DAY'
How You Can Help
Hurricane Katrina
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