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A quick one while I’m away
Related to the previous post, Popaghandi has another post about the Bush visit. There’s also a pretty good discussion going in the comments of the post.
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Umm Yasmin from Dervish (from whom I nicked the theme for my blog) has some good posts in her Make Poverty History speech and “What does the word Islam mean?”.
The Prophet Muhammad , peace and blessings be upon him, is reported to have said that “poverty leads to disbelief”. That is not to say that the poor are unbelievers, or that the lack of material wealth is reflective of the morality of a person - indeed in the mystical tradition of Islam, as in other faiths, living a life of abstinence is seen as a great virtue.
What the Prophet is referring to, rather, is that when people live in oppressive, unstable societies on the margins of existence - and when we let them continue to live this way - then this leads to the breakdown of society. At this point, normal and health relationships break down as people attempt to fulfil their most basic needs of survival. We see this hopelessness, despair and nihilism in the act of the suicide bomber whose mother has been raped, whose father has been killed, whose house has been razed, and whose humanity and life has been sacrificed at the alter of evil.
More frighteningly, we also see it in the marginalised young men who are perhaps not surviving on less than US$1 a day, but who are alienated from our abundantly rich societies in which pay lip-service to equality and freedom but whose leaders and politicians constantly feed the message that there are two classes of people: us and them. In the past, it might have been easy to ignore the suffering of people who live on the other side of the world, or even turn a blind-eye to the suffering of the marginalised in our own societies, but it is increasingly becoming clear that we ignore them at our peril.
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And hello to anybody who’s visiting here from Balderdash.
Peace. Next up are the fashion posts, maybe.
rockin’ in the free world
The local media took the coming of George W Bush as the second coming, but Balderdash has a recent post showing that not everybody was too impressed with his visit.
The New York Times: The Last 20th Century Election?
Washington pundits still persist in portraying our recent elections as a series of waves, alternately sweeping in the proponents of a blue team or a red team; by this theory, first came the Republican surge 12 years ago, and now comes the Democratic countersurge. But in fact, these two waves are more accurately viewed as part of the same continuous seismic disturbance: the growing frustration of voters with the Washington crowd of both parties, who seem stuck in the same ideological debate they were having in 1975, while the rest of the country struggles mightily with the emerging economic and international threats of 2006. After the midterms, that tidal resentment has now washed away both of our old governing philosophies: the expansive and often misguided liberalism that dominated American politics up through the 1970s, as well as the impractical, mean-spirited brand of conservatism that rose up in reaction to it.
Thanks to Kottke.
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Also, I read about Milton Friedman’s death in the papers today (or yesterday, perhaps) and curiously enough Ryan North’s Dinosaur Comics webcomic for the 17th of November includes something that relates to both Friedman and quite possibly the impending increase in the GST.
Technorati Tags: george w bush, singapore, APEC, GST, milton friedman
paiseh
So I turned up at the driving centre on Tuesday. Only to realise that I had brought neither my training record book (the blue booklet they record your lessons in) and my PDL (provisional driving licence, which I have stapled to the inside of the book). It was my automatic lesson which just covers handling an automatic vehicle, a significantly different experience from driving a manual vehicle.
What this meant in practical terms was that since I didn’t have my PDL I was restricted to driving within the circuit, and not even through the S and crank courses or parking. So we ended the lesson early since there wasn’t much I could do either way.
Before I went for RT (remedial training… sigh) I dropped by Cafe Galilee. The name suggests a Christian owned business, I suppose. It’s halal, and as far as I can tell they serve a decent fish and chips (one of the things I’ll try out at any place I go to) and chocolate truffle, with IBC root beer. Since Starbucks stopped serving Thomas Kemper root beer I’ve been trying to find a good brand I can get behind. Mug, well the less said the better. A&W is the Levis of root beer, an affordable brand name soda that most people can get behind. Stewart’s is good, but their Cream Soda is much better. I can still get Thomas Kemper at the Singapore Swimming Club though.
I’m getting used to RT being part of my life. I just need to be able to balance it with working out in my civilian life as well. And I have to deal with my next reservist training (NSMan ICT, whatever) in March of next year.
Meanwhile, I am hoping that employment plans work out, God willing.
Peace.
Technorati Tags: driving, RT, NS
soft gay
You know, points could be made here about dating exclusively outside your race, how annoying people who ask to be set up are (if I’d thought any of my friends would be interested in you, I might actually have brought it up at some point), homophobia and what not.
Ultimately though, I’m posting this just because even though it happened four or five years back (back in the good old days of National Service), I still think it’s funny.
Guy: Don’t you have any Chinese girls you can introduce to me?
Me: No… I’m gay.
Guy: Really? It’s okay, I’m not homophobic.
Me: That’s alright. I’m not gay either.
The guy also introduced me to the throat healing properties of starfruit juice, which I think he was qualified to since he did vocals in a post-hardcore-ish band. They were kick ass when I saw them play.
…while we stand aside and look…
I could find very little on this individual that wasn’t either slavish praise or theologically based criticism. Even his wikipedia entry is a basic one-liner. Azmi first thought he looked like a fatter Martin Lawrence, but I thought he looked like a fatter Harold Perrineau, with which Azmi agreed.
The Guardian - Our Father, who art in Africa
Worldwide Religious News - Evangelical Sects, Catholics vie for African souls
VR Zone Forums - Wah. How come interchange filled with such posters?
This changes nothing
From San Antonio Rock City Comics.
You’d normally go to Mitch Clem for observations on punk culture and music, but this is very nicely done political piece. Sadly enough because it’s true. It means a lot that enough people were fed up with the regular displays of incompetence from the Bush administration to finally end Republican dominance of Congress, but it’s doubtful that the Democrats will be able to truly make a difference in any large sense.
And while it’s nice to see a Muslim in Congress, and one whose stand on issues I can agree with, I’m not holding my breath hoping that this ends Islamophobia or makes significant reform in American foreign policy in the Middle East. Also, there are the controversies regarding his prior affliation with the Nation of Islam (which he has apparently has renounced) as well as campaign funding issues.
Wikipedia - United States Midterm Elections 2006
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I’d almost forgotten about this Calvin & Hobbes strip before CBR’s Mike Smash! posted it up awhile back. It sticks to the rigid panel format that hardly shows off the creativity that Bill Watterson was capable of, but in the case it doesn’t hinder the strip.
Peace.
i’m a muthaf’in PMP
I’ve been in a tech buying mood recently, in part due to my ongoing frustration with Apple and iTunes. Maxian (which I referred to as Maxtian in a previous post for some odd reason) has some really cool portable media players coming up, including the T700 (with touch screen!) the NGage-looking T800, the D900 Neo (although it looks like this runs on memory cards). 30GB of hard disk space isn’t much though (isn’t it weird how fast things move? I used to have a 20GB PC and thought that was too much. And now we’re talking terra bytes.) since I have over 20GBs of MP3s alone. I suppose the Creative Zen Vision W (or its little brother the Zen Vision M) is a more affordable option with more space (although apparently firmware support is lacking, meaning you won’t necessarily be able to watch the porn episodes of Prison Break you’re downloading from BitTorrent using it. There’s the Archos 500870 504, which has 80GB space and few customer complaints it seems(looking at the official page it would seem it also comes in a 120GB model).
An interesting contraption is this, the Vosonic VP8360 with apparently up to 160GB of hard disk space. It seems to be marketed more as a portable HDD than as a PMP, which is curious.
I read this thing in the papers recently about companies reading blogs and am hoping Maxian will send me a little somethin’ somethin’ in the mail.
What I am considering is the Creative Zen V Plus. It’s a nice little number that’s small enough to use for jogging sessions and at the gym, but not fragile-looking the way the iPod NaBu Nano is, and with video, photo and FM radio functions it’s a nice alternative to the Shuffle I’m currently using. Comes in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and now 8GB as well.
I’ve been meaning to get an LCD monitor for my PC too. Plus, the Nintendo DS Lite (I think I’m giving up on consoles in general as I haven’t touched my PS2 in months so I think buying the Wii, despite my rediscovered love for Nintendo) is tempting and I’ve been wanting a DVD player for the television in my room as well (I’ve been wanting to get a small LCD TV for my room too, although that’s for aesthetic and space considerations as well as just plain looking cool). I figure if Azmi can have two LCD monitors, I can have an LCD monitor and an LCD TV.
But it was just my imagination — once again –
running away with me.
I tell you it was just my imagination
running away with me…
Peace.
Technorati Tags: pmp, portable media player, maxian, creative, archos, vosonic
so gangsta fresh
It loses a little in being taken out of context from the movie, but this clip from Office Space is one of my favourite sequences in any movie. The Geto Boys Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta is perfect for the mood of the scene. Plus, I’ve been feeling a little like this recently.
Office Space Recut trailer, thanks to Kottke.
Technorati Tags: office space
Yusuf Islam - Heaven/ Where True Love Goes
A gorgeous melody, great vocals, although he makes some missteps lyrically I feel (”heaven must have programmed you”?… Ok, while writing this I’ve discovered that this song and that lyric in particular is an interpolation from an earlier work of his entitled The Foreigner Suite…doesn’t make the line any less cheesy though). I also think it’s far too overproduced and could’ve used less instrumentation (as Salafi as that might sound) rather than a full band. The closest reference point I can reach for is Rick Rubin’s stripped-down production (or reduction, as Rubin so eloquently put it in the credits for LL Cool J’s first album) work with Johnny Cash. Maybe Rick Rubin should work with him. They both have beards after all.
Which would also make Rick Rubin the first person to work with Yusuf Islam and Slayer. By the way, was anybody else suprised to find out that Tom Araya isn’t a Bible burning Satanist or even an atheist of any stripe? Curiouser and curiouser.
Rolling Stone: Cat Stevens breaks his silence (interview conducted before he was denied entry into the US… while the plane was in mid-flight)
Trying out the new plug-in. I think it’s pretty catchy despite its flaws. The song I mean, not the plug-in.
Yusuf Islam - Heaven/ Where True Love Goes
Rating: 
Peace.
Technorati Tags: Cat Stevens, Yusuf Islam
It’s a celebration bitches
I finally passed my advanced (game) theory. And I didn’t even have to crack open the handbook. Full story: what happened when was I taking my basic theory was that I did this online studying thing that the school offered (which cost something like sixty dollars extra, but let’s not get into that) which also had trial tests as part of the programme. I did read the book once in a while, but found I learned more going the e-learning route. When it came to the advanced theory test, I thought that I didn’t want to pay so much just to take the test. After all, even I took and failed the test five times it would still cost less than the e-learning programme.
What they didn’t tell me at the counter when I was applying for my advanced theory test was that the trial tests they offered at the school were free of charge. They were so obviously trying to get the extra twelve dollars out of me for the two times that I failed my advanced theory. What it is is that the trial test questions are exactly the same as the advanced theory test questions. It’s ten “ten year series” type of tests on a touch screen (yes really, Winda) computer, so going through all the trial tests would give you every possible permutation of questions for the advanced theory. And that is how I passed.
I’ve booked my automatic car lesson (sadly despite the name the car doesn’t drive itself) for next week (hopefully I won’t need more than one) and my driving test is scheduled for the end of January. I’ll definitely book more driving lessons between now and then, but I’m still a little tense. I think I definitely rushed things a little, sometimes booking up to three or four lessons a week. I’d thought that since my PDL (provisional driving licence) expired in six months it would be best to speed things up. I mean, I was sure to pick up the skills to drive the wheels soon enough right?
In any case, there are stories to be told from the driving centre, but they are probably best left until after I get my licence so I don’t get driving lesson dooced.
Technorati Tags: driving
