I WANTED IN!!! Almaghrib Institute is hosting an awesome, but exclusive, two week retreat in August called “Ilm Summit” and I didn’t want to miss it. I was especially excited about it when I saw some of the topics that were going to be discussed. The only problem was that there was an application and admissions process.

I am not normally fond of admissions processes because you in effect subordinate yourself to another’s judgment and validation. Every time you apply for something like this you are saying “please let me in” and open yourself to a an arbitrary “hell no.”

I also had another problem. Based on the criteria for admission posted on the AlMaghrib Forums and the questions in the application, I didn’t stand a good chance of getting in.

What to do, what to do.

Well, I figured if my chances of being accepted were low anyway and I didn’t like humiliating myself via the application process, I would turn to my old friend “unorthodoxy.” Let it be known that unorthodox methods are a crap shoot. You are banking on being unique and original enough to attract attention to your application and hoping that the guy on the other side doesn’t have the tightwad reaction where his chin retracts into his neck and says “I am not impressed.”

Anyway, I decided to do what I do best. I wrote a mediocre poem about how they would miss out big if they don’t invite me. Now I will share that poem with you: Enjoy.

What is a Poem Worth?

What is a poem worth?
Can it as an application serve?
If it inspires in you mirth
a shot it surely does deserve.

Without being too uncouth
I’ll bluntly tell you the truth …

Your gathering is in poverty
without my linguistic harmony,
and so i offer quite candidly,
by declaring my interest openly
an opportunity to avoid a calamity
in excluding me and my poetry,

This is my vanity
which I admit wholeheartedly.
The choice is yours, but in all sincerity
excluding me would be a gross catastrophe.

the Man Of Few Words

I guess I wasn’t clear about this but I did get accepted with this poem in my application. Several people asked me if I got in or not. I thought the title of this post was self explanatory but apparently not.

The following conversation occurred at a wedding I went to today:

Dude1: The dabka [Palestinian dance] is so stupid … it’s only two steps.
Me: Yo, what about the Desis [Indo-Pakistanis], you guys just point.
Dude2: Don’t forget the point and wrist twist.
Dude1: Yeah and the cup and twist.
Me: Dude, are we still talking about dancing?

This is an actual conversation I had in Google Chat today:

S: pharmacists
me: huh?
S: how do you feel about them being called “doctors”
due to the PharmD?
me: I care about this as much as the Pluto planet controversy
S: awesome
so what’s your opinion?
me: in america you are free to call urself whatever you please
see “Dr” dre
see “president” bush
S: lol
thx
i recycled your joke
and gave you no credit
me: khiyana!
(deep betrayal)

More and more often advertising on the billboards of major highways, on the backs of buses and on store fronts is getting racier and racier. In my part of the world there is a certain ad for a radio station that features three naked women with the radio station’s logo strategically placed to keep it legal.

Needless to say, for the practicing Muslim man the ubiquity of these ads makes it quite challenging to go outside of our homes without surrendering to wandering gazes. So in a moment of genius I fancied a solution.

Particularly egregious public displays of nudity and indecency would be targeted by guerilla graffiti brigades who, upon cover of darkness, would descend on said advertisement and deface pictures of sultry damsels with crude spray painted niqabs (veils).

Mind you I am not encouraging anyone to do this (though it would be very cool and ballsy) and I myself am too scared of the perverted institution of sodomy and racism that is the police to try it myself.

So I retreated to the fantasy lab that is photoshop and had a taste of what that would feel like with these three movie posters. Enjoy them now that they are halal. (Just because these movie posters are now halal, doesn’t mean that the content of these movies are, so don’t get any funny ideas.)

That took much longer that you would think. You know, after all this time spent fiddling with these pictures, I don’t think they look like niqabis so much as they do ninjas. Ninjabis anyone?

Sometime while in class working as a substitute teacher, I have just had enough and so this is how I deal with it. (more…)

“Spontaneous, Science Fiction, Politics.” What on earth could these mean? These three words were written in a list on a white board in a friends bedroom. I was stumped and he was away in the bathroom or something when I discovered them. I was rather flustered that I couldn’t get the instant gratification I wanted by asking him what all this was about and settling this mystery. (more…)

For a variety of reasons that I won’t bore my readers with at the moment, I am not enthusiastic about marriage. But I know a good deal when I see one and if you trotted out a lady with the following qualities I wouldn’t turn her away. Keep in mind that religion is a given. So here goes. (more…)

So this is how Muslim men turn gay. It seems Faisal Alam, founder of the queer “Muslim” group al-Fatiha, is not some sexual deviant with a perverted agenda but the victim of a broken heart. Though, in all fairness, I think he took things a little too far.

While doing a little bit of research I came upon this little gem which highlights accuracy of Wikipedia. It was a little bit unnerving when I was looking for an article about a mythological Roman god and I got this.

(captured Tues. April 7th, 2008 at 3:00pm Eastern Time)

Did journalists help get public opinion behind the Iraq war despite the lack of any evidence of WMDs because they are were deviously conspiring with neo-cons, or because they are exquisitely stupid? I think that this video provides an answer.

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