a gay cowboy you did play
but I forgive your fruity foray
for the joker you did portray

-themanoffewwords

Putting aside my resentment for a moment, a little background is necessary to understand the scenes. In the world of Wall*E, human being have long abandoned a horrifically polluted Earth to live in a technological utopia on a massive spaceship built and run by a massive corporation, Buy n Large, whose wastefulness and materialism poisoned earth to begin with.

In the first scene, young children in cradles are being taught corporate propaganda via television. In stark contrast is one of the final scenes where the children are being taught how to farm by planting and watering a sapling.

Here’s a critique on theoretical, institutionalized learning versus the natural approach based on apprenticeships and a hands-on, learning by doing approach. And all this was in scenes that are entertaining, funny and run a combined total of 25 seconds.

In all likelihood, if you have made it this far into this post it’s been far longer than 25 seconds. It’s hard not to be envious.

I recently read (ok skimmed) an article that blamed Muslim parents for the religious extremism of their children. I’m sure that Zionist thugs are just an elaborate excuse then. If that was someone’s dad getting beat up by these Nazis I’m sure that the children would want to retaliate so I guess maybe the author was right.

(Keep in mind that the article did not mention any child abuse or even any crimes committed by the parents. Only that the husband is “presumed to be involved in “hate crimes” related to children.” Which isn’t substantial enough to warrant removing children from their parents.)

Freedom, while sounding more and more like a cliche nowadays, should include the right to teach your children whatever you want (including that human beings used to ride dinosaurs to work.) What else will the state deem repugnant in the future? Teaching your children about the Constitution? Teaching them to criticize government policy? Or maybe teaching them to criticize Zionism, after all criticizing Israel is anti-Semitic right? How about just plain old teaching them about Islam and praying five times a day?

Really, if Nazis are so bad why does the government goose step into people’s homes and kidnap their children? Isn’t that more than a little Nazi-like?

Standard authoritarian practice is to set precedents by attacking unpopular groups that will rouse little or no sympathy and use their powers against ordinary folk. Beware the Canadians!

While the internet is such a great resource it has fundamentally changed the way that I approach reading. Where I used to read and concentrate on what I was reading for hours at a time, now I find myself self easily distracted and constantly skimming. Sometimes, I would enjoy reading something powerful or interesting and then deeply contemplating what I was reading while making sophisticated connections and taking notes.

Now, the shameful truth is, I don’t even read books anymore! Hell, I didn’t even read the whole article I linked to above! I saw it was paginated and I gave up after I read the first page out of five. But since I was interested in the article I bookmarked it to del.icio.us under the tag ‘read this.’ Go ahead and check out my delicious ‘readthis’ tag and see how many articles I have bookmarked there. It’s pretty obvious I won’t EVER be reading them. It’s just an exercise to relieve my guilt.

I once listened to a lecture by a professor whose forte was writing about technology and society. He said that he chooses not to use computers and won’t even appear on television. Regarding computer use, he said something interesting that I didn’t understand at the time. The reason he didn’t use a computer is because it teaches to think of everything as data and that this has a detrimental effect on the mind. Now I understand.

You can even see bloggers adapting to the habits of their readers. Bloggers recommend writing “scannable content” or content that is essentially designed to be skimmed. Others have done research on the eye movements of people browsing content on the internet and created heatmaps to describe users reading patterns. These take the shape of an ‘f’ on the page. People scan the first and second lines then go down the page and off they go to another site.

While I won’t be quitting the internet anytime soon I must say that the thought has crossed my mind. It should be noted that as cool as this internet thing is, it comes with a price and that price might be more than you wish to pay.

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“Everyone who desires and looks forward to the Hereafter must be familiar with these hadith because they cover the most important aspects of the religion and they offer direction to all forms of obedience to Allah. This is clear to anyone who ponders these hadith.” - Al-Nawawi’s introduction to his Forty Hadeeth

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.

We are the Flute

We are the flute, our music is all Thine;
We are the mountains echoing only Thee;
And movest to defeat or victory;
Lions emblazoned high on flags unfurled-
The wind invisible sweeps us through the world.

by: Rumi

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?