half past nomad

Oct. 14th 1066.
Little did William of Normandy realize, that when he arrived 16 days earlier, that he’d be in the situation he was in right now. As he arrived on this strange land, he was meet with an omen. As he took his 1st steps onto the land, he tripped and fell onto his face. Quickly thinking, he stood up with some of the local dirt in his hands and proclaimed, “I now take control of the land of England.” Little did he realize exactly how prophetic his words were.

He was thinking back upon this as he and his troops stood downward of the English troops. Behind him were the combined armies of the Norman’s, Briton’s, and Flemish. Many were their for wealth, for personal glory, or because the Pope had blessed this expedition.

The English forces were weakend, and were manned only by the peasents at this time. The skilled knights, and fighters had all been slaughtered. As night was about to fall, William decided to push his forces and attack. The archers fired high and slew the ranks at the back. During this battle the English king, Harold was struck in the right eye by an arrow. As he attempted to pull it out, he was slayed by the forces of Norman.

At this point William of Normandy declared himself the king of England. Soon afterwards the remaining nobles gave in and gave him their pledge of allegiance.

Memories are like faint imprints on your brain. It’s a reminder of some past feeling, or joy that you’ve had. Viewing items from the past are memory joggers. As I write these words, I’m constantly reminded that this blog has a 2nd half.

Waleed.

Reminders of his presence are abound. His article about going to KSA and praying for us. His thoughts of having his mind turn to slush. These reminders are ever present and remind us of the joy of having Waleed amongst us.

But like photo’s hanging on the wall, they just fade into the background and we don’t actualize the full memory of the moment that they are meant to evoke.

Overtime as the memory starts to fade, you wonder if the event actually occured or if it’s something that you made up. I remember the joy and pleasure that I had in reading a Waleed original. But I’m wondering, did it really happen? Does Waleed really exist?

So I’m asking everyone for a petition. A petion based on everyone’s thoughts and feelings for the return of Waleed. Even if only for a short plug.

Waleeeeeeeeed….we miss you.

Everytime that you read the newspaper their are 2 things that stick out. The stories of outsourcing, and those about how Muslims need to reform themselves.

Outsourcing is rampant in industry. Manufacturing is outsourced to China, or Mexico. All the call centers in the world are outsourced to India. The banking industry is based out of Hong Kong. Techinal programmers are outsourced to India.
In the news you hear how everyone is talking about how Muslims need to modernize. Only through modernization can we grow as a faith, and live along with everyone else.

So what if we take the modern idea of outsourcing, and apply it to Islam, in this the holy month of Ramadan.

What if we outsourced Ramadan? If you break your fast, the penalty is to feed 60 people. So what if we feed 60 people in China, or Mexico..everyday for 30 days? If you take the population of 1 billion for China, and divide by 60, that is 16.7 million. So 16.7 million people in the US/Canada could do this. This is 2x the Muslim population of the US.

So yes…we can modernize the Muslim world by outsourcing Ramadan.

Everyone growing up has an imaginary friend. They are your best friend, your companion, your compatriot in crime, your confidant. They are what you wish your friends would be. But what if your imaginary friend, had an imaginary friend? What would happen then?

For a long period of time now, AKDS has been your imaginary friend. He’s been someone with whom you could vicariously live your life through, and get a different perspective.

Shahid happens to be his imaginary friend. I’m the one who AKDS shares his concerns, his comments, is his confidant, and is his compatriot. I’m also the one who he lives part of his life through, to get the perspective of someone who took a different path on the road of life.
Yes, I am your imagination^2.

During the next several weeks, I’ll be taking over for AKDS. During this time period, you’ll be joining me for an interesting side journey, where you can walk in my world for a little bit. I recently happend to meet someone, and will be posting about how that works out, Inshallah. The first several posts have already occured, but will be posted for postierity, and for the sake of continuity.

In the uniquely prescient words of Bilbo Baggins:
“I need a holiday. A very long holiday. …”

I’m looking forward to this. Ramadan is starting! This is a good a time as any to take a break from blogging for a while; to take a holiday.

But don’t worry, I’ve convinced a friend to take my place. So inshallah in a few days or so he’ll start blogging in this column instead of me. Exciting.

I was hoping to quit with the last post (nyc vs chicago) but then a random chicagoan left an oddly personal comment. Anyway, as Yasmine would say, Vat is this drama…

Remember when you were growing up and your parents made you wear that weird horizontal striped sweater? No? Fine.. then maybe it was just me. =(

There has been a lot of talk about Evo and his sweater. I say “has” because the topic might be a bit dated now; I actually wrote this post a (long) while back ..

So briefly, Evo is the new president of Bolivia. He’s communist. And he really likes the sweater he’s seen wearing above. I mean really. In fact, he likes it so much that during his world tour, he even wore it to formal occasions, such as meeting the King of Spain.

This naturally puzzled people, why is this dude wearing the same sweater everywhere… Everyone wanted to find an explanation for the sweater.

Commentators made bold statements about how it was the new revolutionary uniform for the Bolivian working class, akin to the uniform of les sans culottes (knowing this french phrase is usless as well) in the French Revolution. Or that the sweater was “metaphorically knit of [Bolivia’s] basic unsatisfied needs.”

Naturally, these lofty accolades were not unanimously observed. Evo, unfortunately, was also subject to newspaper editoral ridicule (that even doormen have better dress protocol).

And then there were those who tried to take the centrist approach:

Both criticism and praise of Evo Morales’s wardrobe is smoke and mirrors. It’s likely he isn’t trying to insult kings and presidents, nor is he sending messages about poverty and revolution. Morales isn’t President Bush or President Zapatero; when he puts on [his sweater] it isn’t a PR move meant to reveal disregard or resolve … He’s [simply] wearing his clothes. – Annie Murphy

My take? I think people are missing the point here … This dude _single handedly_ brought horizontal striped sweaters back in.

Viva La Revolución.

In a cage match, basically it comes down to this: Hemingway saw WWI action whereas Faulkner didn’t; major points for Ernest. Hemingway shot himself, whereas Faulkner drank himself to oblivion; both lose that round. However, I think Faulkner has the edge with being a perennial drunk; it would numb the pain and make him unpredictable.

Regardless, Hemingway wins in my book. Minimalism always wins over verbosity.

I am going to KSA for a business trip. From there, I’ll be flying out for umrah. Just for a few days but still enough. Enough enough enough. Insha-allah

For the next 7 days, you can email me directly at with the dua you wish me to make and insha-allah, I will print them out and take them with me. To Mecca.

And sitting in front of the Kabba, I shall make dua. For you. Insha-allah.

In an effort to save cost I asked around school for empty boxes I could use for packing stuff. This is a common practice at university since a lot of students need boxes and the department/school has no use for empty boxes.

So I asked a friend in one of the biology labs. He brought back some unassembled boxes that had BIOHAZARD marks emblazed on them. They were boxes researchers are suppose to assemble and then use to dispose biologically hazardous junk. (Besides being extra sturdy when assembled, there is nothing unique about the boxes.)

So although the geek inside me would totally love the idea of packing my clothes and books in BIOHAZARD marked boxes, something tells me it might not be such a great idea. Particularly if you’re moving to a new apartment and the doorman notices you bringing in boxes and boxes of “BIOHAZARD”.