...a gentler vision of Islam

"They've memorized the entire holy book, but they don't understand its meaning."
Kamil Ture, a Turkish administrator.
"How we interpret the Koran is totally dependent on our education."
Mesut Kacmaz, principal of a PakTurk school in Karachi.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/world/asia/04islam.html?hp

In a recent NY Times article, Sebnem Arsu writes about flowering schools of Turkish origins taking roots in Pakistan. A Turkish school in Karachi is prospering. "It is in a poor neighborhood in the south of the city where residents are mostly Pashtun, a strongly trial ethnic group whose porer fringers have been among the most susceptible to radicalism." It is touching to hear testimony from Abdul Bari, a 31-year-old teacher of Islam who lives in a neighborhood without electricity or running water.Two brothers from his tribe were killed in a suicide mission, leaving their mother a beggar..Abdul is raising his younger siblings, his father died suddenly twelve years agol. Abdul decided that one of his brothers should be educated, and enrolled him in the Turkish school.
Illiteracy is one of the main problems of the Muslim world. Too often radical fundamentalists recruit desperate and illiterate men and women who do not understand the true teachings of the Koran. These false prophets take a skewed interpretation of Islam and they prey on the illiterate; in Baluchistan, Quetta's sparsely populated province of Pakistan, the literacy rate is less than 10 per cent.
Does this sound radical? Yes, especially to suspicious radical Islamists.
The model from which these schools are based, is the brainchild of a Turkish Islamic scholar, Fethullah Gulen. It is estimated that the number of his followers in Turkey range from three million to five million. "The schools which also operate in Christian countries like Russia, are not for Muslims alone, and one of their stated aims is to promote interfaith understanding." From this view, I can only hope that this moderate stance will prepare some leader for tomorrow to be more peace loving, and more tolerant of different religions and cultures. It certainly cannot hurt. JT

When we torture....

Nicholas Kristoff has written a brave and powerful editorial about 'Sami-El Hajj', a prisoner at Guantanamo bay who is starving himself to death to protest his unjust imprisonment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/opinion/14kristof.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Two hundred and ninety people have responded to Kristoff's editorial, the majority of them supporting him in his condemnation of Guantanamo. I added my response to this..a most shameful act of our American government. What is most troubling is that this man is innocent but has no legal respresentation.

"Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler" by Mark Bittman...my comments

Mark Bittman in his article, "Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler, NY Times, Jan 27, 2008
touches a nerve in American's love affair with meat. To live 'Green' today means somehow
'stepping lightly' with as little of a carbon footprint as possible. EATING MEAT does not do this. "Americans eat about eight ounces a day, roughly twice the global average, At about 5 percent of the world' s population, we process( that is, grow and kill) nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world's total."
Michael Pollan, in his book "Ominivore's Dilemma' followed his purchased heifer from calf to slaughter, and experienced first-hand the huge, unsanitary confined animal feeding plants, the assembly-line factories; and discovered that the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, and that this diet causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is necessary. The feeding of grain to cattle is highly inefficient. According to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University, "about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption." Some "800 million people on the planet suffer from hunger and malnutrition, but the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens."
Then there is the growing demand for ethanol; if more crops are grown for fuel, then food prices (food crops) will be driven up, "last year, there was a 40% rise in the food price index calcuated by the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization." This could have tragic consequences for peoples of poorer nations.

messing with your mind....

**** I am saddened by the death of a young man, one year younger than my oldest daughter,
WHY I ask, someone so talented, so young...why this tragedy. I can only speculate there is something that does not make sense. Does success create stress, and tensions, does it make life more difficult to experience? After all, no man is mortal, but cheating death never works, I can only feel the loss, and his daughter who will never know her father..




Heath Ledger
Actor
Born:
April 4, 1979 in Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Death:
January 22, 2008 in New York City, New York
Biography:Already something of an established actor in his native Australia, "Heath Ledger" first came to the attention of American audiences in 1999 with his winning turn in the teen comedy "10 Things I Hate About You". Playing the rebellious Patrick Verona in the update of The Taming of the Shrew, Ledger managed to arouse many an adolescent hormone with his thorny, charismatic performance.

Born in Perth, Western Australia on April 4, 1979, Ledger first became interested in acting while attending the all-boys Guilford Grammar School. He began his career performing onstage with the Guildford Theatre Company and was soon appearing in substantial roles on Australian television shows. The 1996 series Sweat featured him as a gay cyclist, while the following year's Roar cast him as a medieval Celtic prince--and also won him the beginnings of a fan base. After moving across the Pacific to Los Angeles, Ledger...
Full Biography

Heath Ledger
Actor
Born:
April 4, 1979 in Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Death:
January 22, 2008 in New York City, New York
Biography:Already something of an established actor in his native Australia, "Heath Ledger" first came to the attention of American audiences in 1999 with his winning turn in the teen comedy "10 Things I Hate About You". Playing the rebellious Patrick Verona in the update of The Taming of the Shrew, Ledger managed to arouse many an adolescent hormone with his thorny, charismatic performance.

Born in Perth, Western Australia on April 4, 1979, Ledger first became interested in acting while attending the all-boys Guilford Grammar School. He began his career performing onstage with the Guildford Theatre Company and was soon appearing in substantial roles on Australian television shows. The 1996 series Sweat featured him as a gay cyclist, while the following year's Roar cast him as a medieval Celtic prince--and also won him the beginnings of a fan base. After moving across the Pacific to Los Angeles, Ledger...
Full Biography

This blog is under construction and I will diligently work on it every day,
I guess the best way to describe me is I am an Aesthete, an athlete, and a gourmand...
Check out my webpage : http://webpages.charter.net/johge