Clipmarks | arifsali's clips

Minaret ban unreasonable, understandable

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:31:50 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: newsweek.washingtonpost.com

In a world of 24/7 imaging and sound bites, big public acts get noticed, whether for good or for bad, and they shape public consciousness. That is why it is important for all people to speak out against the Swiss ban, and equally important for all Muslims to act as big and speak as loudly in defense of the rights of others as they do in defense of their own. In a globalized world, we are all connected and failure to do so will simply empower the haters and the xenophobes everywhere.

Tags: muslims, religion, swiss

A Lost European Culture, Pulled From Obscurity

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:11:40 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Dr. Bagnall, a specialist in Egyptian archaeology, remarked that at the time “Egyptians were certainly not making pottery like this.”

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Before the glory that was Greece and Rome, even before the first cities of Mesopotamia or temples along the Nile, there lived in the Lower Danube Valley and the Balkan foothills people who were ahead of their time in art, technology and long-distance trade.

Writing had yet to be invented, and so no one knows what the people called themselves. To some scholars, the people and the region are simply Old Europe.

The little-known culture is being rescued from obscurity in an exhibition, “The Lost World of Old Europe: the Danube Valley, 5000-3500 B.C.,” which opened last month at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University.

Tags: europe, history

Pew Survey: Pakistan scores very low in American's view

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 23:29:38 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: The most negatively affected country by terrorism in the world scores very low with Americans. Amazing.

Clip Source: lynch.foreignpolicy.com

The two most interesting findings in this section have to do with Pakistan and Israel. Only 16% of the public has a favorable view of Pakistan, our essential partner in the new AfPak strategy -- barely more than have a favorable view of Iran (11%) -- and unfavorable views of Pakistan have gone from 39% to 68% since last year.

Tags: american, pakistan

The Role Models!

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 02:45:23 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www2.canada.com

And it's too bad those "countless Tiger faithfuls" are in such a bind, but maybe now they will gain a little insight and start to look at the real role models--the people in their daily lives who go about quietly getting amazing things done, people who, regardless of their golf swing or the size of their bank account, put their values into action to make the lives of those around them better. These are real people, not images on a TV screen who will never interact with the foolish fans who worship them as "role models." Just what "role" has Tiger Woods modelled?

The distinction between admiring someone from afar for his or her athletic ability, acting talent or singing voice, and calling that individual a hero because of it, has become so blurred as to be pathological. You want role models? Look around you. They're everywhere. Ordinary people are the heroes and the role models, but they go unnoticed because they're not rich or glamorous and no cameras are trained on them.

Tags: celebrities, heroes

The Secret Political Reach Of 'The Family'

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:41:10 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.wbur.org

You may recognize these names from recent headlines: Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Bart Stupak and Rep. Joe Pitts. Stupak and Pitts have become familiar names through the media's health care overhaul coverage; their abortion funding amendment introduced an 11th-hour twist as the House of Representatives approached a vote on a landmark health care bill.

Ensign was the focus of media attention over his affair with a campaign staffer. Just last night, a Nevada man disclosed that he found out about his wife's affair with the state's junior senator — his best friend — via a text message.

The common factor among these political players is their involvement with the Family, a secretive fellowship of powerful Christian politicians that centers on a Washington, D.C., townhouse. Investigative journalist Jeff Sharlet has written extensively about the influential group in his book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.

Tags: politics, religion

U.S. Muslims are Americans too

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:02:49 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Americans are Christians, Jews, Hindus, agnostics, atheists, and anything else in between -- but Americans are also Muslims, millions of them, and Islam has now become integral to what the distinguished American sociologist Robert Bellah termed our "civil religion."

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

The distinguished New York Times columnist David Brooks, one of the most consistently militant warriors in his take on American involvements in Afghanistan and Iraq, takes Islam -- and Islam alone -- to task for having a diabolic roughness on its fringes.

The same Hinduism that produced Mahatma Gandhi and his non-violent theory of civil disobedience has also produced Hindu fundamentalists who sliced and skewered pregnant Muslim women alive in Gujarat.

The same Christianity that produced Saint Francis of Assisi and Mother Theresa also produced children's crusades and Spanish conquistadors who burned native Americans alive 13 at a time

The same Judaism that produced Martin Buber, Emanuel Levinas, or Primo Levi also produced the Stern Gang, Meir Kahane and Baruch Goldstein.

But the knee jerk reaction of blaming Islam and Muslims, in general, or looking for delusional links to "al Qaeda," for the horrific murders at Fort Hood points to something far more fundamental

Tags: islam, muslims, united states

Islam's warrior prophet shrouded by myth, devotion

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:58:01 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.chron.com

Yet for detractors, Islam's Prophet Muhammad is a polygamist who spawned a religion that subjugates women, condones violence, and was, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “spread by the sword.”

In short, when his best-known modern portrait is a 2005 Danish cartoon that depicts a surly bearded man with a bomb hidden in his turban, Muhammad has an image problem.

Enter Omid Safi, a scholar of Islam at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill whose new biography, Memories of Muhammad: Why the Prophet Matters, attempts to discover the true Muhammad obscured by both hagiography and militant extremism.

“I'm trying to help non-Muslims learn things about Muhammad that they've never known,” Safi said over a pot of Ethiopian coffee, “and help Muslims remember things they've forgotten.”

Tags: books, history, islam, religion

GRB 090423 - the most distant known object in the Universe

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:57:01 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: via chestnut501 http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/B59F45DC-4C41-47C7-8E47-E06B1F83D4EB/

Clip Source: www.star.le.ac.uk

In this week's edition of the science journal Nature, two international teams of astronomers report their observations of the most distant object yet seen in the Universe. Dubbed GRB 090423, the record-breaker is an example of a gamma-ray burst, the brightest and most violent explosions known to exist. The explosion is thought to accompany the catastrophic death of a very massive star as it ended its life, and is triggered by the centre of the star collapsing to form a black hole.

"This observation allows us to begin exploring the last blank space on our map of the Universe", said Professor Nial Tanvir, who led one of the teams.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Nature press notice

GRB 090423 background FAQ

Figures from paper

Tags: astronomy, nature, science, universe

Longevity Calculator

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:22:29 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Calculator is based on a quiz Harvard Medical School researchers Thomas Perl, M.D. and Margery Hutter Silver, Ed.D. developed to help you calculate your life expectancy.

Clip Source: www.icmarc.org

Longevity Calculator

Select your answer for each of the questions then click on the "Calculate" button at the bottom of the form to display the life expectancy derived from your responses. The "Score" column is to display the score for each of your responses. No entry is required in the "Score" column. About this Calculator

Tags: life, death

Islam and Thanksgiving

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:13:51 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.connectionnewspapers.com

The national holiday of Thanksgiving is a special holiday which has a beautiful message and is celebrated by all faiths and denominations. In Islam the Quranic term of giving thanks is "Shukr", the recognition of a favor and its acknowledgement. It is mentioned several times in the Quran, and all Muslims are required to apply this attribute of giving thanks in their daily lives.

Tags: holiday, islam, thanksgiving

What Earth Would Look Like With Rings Like Saturn

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:34:43 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

What the rings would look like from different cities and latitudes accross the world.

[Video]

Tags: astronomy, earth

Google to Put Iraqi Artifacts Online

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:57:04 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: “I can think of no better use of our time and our resources than to make the images and the ideas of your civilization available to all the people of the world,” Mr. Schmidt said.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

BAGHDAD — Amira Edan, the director of Iraq’s National Museum, says that soon she will no longer have to worry so much that the famous institution remains closed to the public for fear of violence.

People will just be able to Google it. “It’s really wonderful,” she said Tuesday.

Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, had just made a presentation inside the museum, announcing that his company would create a virtual copy of the museum’s collections at its own expense, and make images of four millennia of archaeological treasures available online, free, by early next year.

Tags: google, iraq, museum, technology

Interfaith amigos

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:03:45 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Three Clergymen, Three Faiths, One Friendship

NASHVILLE — It sounds like the start of a joke: a rabbi, a minister and a Muslim sheik walk into a restaurant.

But there they were, Rabbi Ted Falcon, the Rev. Don Mackenzie and Sheik Jamal Rahman, walking into an Indian restaurant, and afterward a Presbyterian church. The sanctuary was full of 250 people who came to hear them talk about how they had wrestled with their religious differences and emerged as friends.

Tags: christianity, islam, judaism, religion

Huston Smith's painful spiritual odyssey

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:18:41 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: It's a good read.

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

"Religion," Smith once wrote, is "the call to confront reality; to master the self." Smith had strived to answer that call for much of his life.

He had trained with Zen masters in Japan, camped with aborigines in Australia and dropped peyote with Native American shamans. He didn't just study religions; he lived them.

In time, Smith became known as the sage of world religion. He introduced the Dalai Lama to the West; befriended mythologist Joseph Campbell and was the subject of a five-part PBS series hosted by Bill Moyers called "Wisdom of the Ages."

But as Smith sat at his daughter's bedside, the wisdom of the ages offered little consolation. "I would sob uncontrollably, crying in anguish," he said.

Tags: life, religion

Reddit and TED, QA with Karen Armstrong

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:43:23 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: This is a must read, important questions of the day, answered by Karen Armstrong.

Clip Source: blog.ted.com

Why did the Buddha teach that the existence of God (that is, whether God exists or not) is irrelevant?

Before we get to the Buddha, I want to describe a spiritual exercise that developed in India in the 10th century BCE, four hundred years before his lifetime and which is a model of authentic religious discourse.

It was called the Brahmodya Competition and its aim was to find a verbal formula that defined the Brahman, the ultimate reality that lies beyond the gods and is indefinable because it is the inmost essence of all things, the force that pulls the disparate parts of the universe together.

Tags: religion