Aym Playing

For six weeks, Dr. Sardar Yousufzai will teach middle and high school students the basic concepts of chemistry. This is a free six-week, one hour course at Paine College. The main objective is to equip students with basic knowledge for science courses.

Where: Paine College’s Walker Science Building

When: June 7-July 22, every Tuesday and Thursday, 10:30-11:30 AM

To enroll or get more information, call Dr. Sardar Yousufzai at (706) 860-8992 or e-mail syousufzai@paine.edu.  

Dr. Yousufzai taught a similar course in 2009.

jamesurbaniak:

NY Times: I.M.F. Chief May Claim Consensual Sex as a Defense

Earlier:

“He’s a short fat old man.” -Ben Stein

Look for a new Ben Stein post tomorrow describing Strauss-Kahn as “distinguished, suave and sophisticated.”

I’m no journalist, and I don’t know the standards for running an editorial page.

A local newspaper appears twice weekly, and it published a letter to the editor which contained the following sentence:

In Barbara Seaborn’s March 30 column, “Why not try Christianity for a day?” she left out one ingredient that changes doing the right thing and living the right way, which all religions admonish except Islam, and that is the person of Jesus Christ. [emphasis added]

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Gil Ward took a sideswipe at Muslims by saying “doing the right thing and living the right way, which all religions admonish except Islam.” A letter to the editor is not the appropriate setting to explain a religion’s ethical teachings, but it might be worth exposing people who have not read a translation of the Qur’an to a few passages.

“And serve Allah and do not associate any thing with Him and be good to the parents and to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the neighbor of (your) kin and the alien neighbor, and the companion in a journey and the wayfarer and those whom your right hands possess; surely Allah does not love him who is proud, boastful.” (4:35)

“Surely Allah enjoins the doing of justice and the doing of good (to others) and the giving to the kindred, and He forbids indecency and evil and rebellion; He admonishes you that you may be mindful.”(16:90)

“And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord; and a Garden, the extensiveness of which is (as) the heavens and the earth, it is prepared for those who guard (against evil). Those who spend (benevolently) in ease as well as in straitness, and those who restrain (their) anger and pardon people; and Allah loves the doers of good (to others). And those who when they commit an indecency or do injustice to their souls remember Allah and ask forgiveness for their faults— and who forgives the faults but Allah, and (who) do not knowingly persist in what they have done.” (3:133-5)

But it’s a mistake to read a few passages and then claim that those words define living people. People with agendas against Muslims search scripture and use the same methods to attribute to Muslims every kind of evil.

I’d encourage Mr. Ward and any others who wonder what Muslims in Augusta advocate to visit any of the local mosques and observe for themselves.

I’ve just finished Ben Bova’s Leviathans of Jupiter, a sequel to Jupiter. I love all alien contact sci fi, and I loved the way Ben Bova explored the different ways we might try to communicate with the alien species on Jupiter.

I’m assuming that a 3rd novel is on the way. Please, Mr. Bova, drop the Katherine Westfall character.

If there has to be an enemy, let it be based on a legitimate concern about scientific research in an alien environment or the appropriateness of inserting ourselves in the Jovian ocean. Or maybe a political crisis on Earth which makes further exploration unsustainable. Or something else. Anything besides bureaucratic jealousy or personal neuroses.

Note, you can follow Ben Bova on Twitter.

Before I begin, let me make clear that I have never admired, supported, cared for, sympathized with or liked #OBL and those who pursue a path of violence which no rational person could believe would lead to a positive result.

The true refutation of OBL’s ideology of jihad as an act of violence regardless of its consequences is the revolutions in different Muslim countries. There, people did jihad with a purpose through means which Islam permitted. As Issandr El Amrani pointed out, OBL has been irrelevant for some time in the countries on whose behalf he claimed he was fighting. As Mona Eltahawy wrote in the Guardian:

What had become more mesmerising to young people in the Middle East and North Africa: change via revolutionary fervour that has blown apart stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims, or the hate-filled al-Qaida message that falsely promised change through nihilistic violence?

The vast majority of commentary in the USA on OBL’s assassination has been jubilant. I understand why and I don’t think that Americans are uniquely subject to this character flaw. What concerns me here is the ridiculous, insulting and immoral way the US government has treated the corpse of OBL.

The United States claimed that it buried OBL at sea, according to Islamic tradition, because it could find no country which would accept the corpse.

As @Zeinobia rightly pointed out, the burial at sea may have been compatible with the shariah of Vikings, not Muslims. The Grand Shaikh of al-Azhar in Cairo doesn’t think it met “Islamic requirements.”

But I’m not concerned with that either. My objection to the handling of the corpse is how it represents the usurpation by the United States of the last shred of sovereignty Pakistan might claim and the complete abdication of this sovereignty by the Pakistani government.

Why could not the United States leave the corpse where it fell? If Pakistan decided to feed it to wolves or cremate it or honor it with a state funeral, then that is Pakistan’s business. If the United States needed to confirm the corpse’s identity, couldn’t it have taken samples and then left the corpse behind? Could it not trust the Pakistani government to confirm the identity?

Regarding not being able to find a country which would accept the corpse, since when does the United States ask other countries for permission do to things? Particularly Pakistan, where the United States regularly assassinates people via drone attacks without specific authorization from any Pakistani authority?

Why could not there have been some lab aboard the ship to conduct whatever experiments and testing US intelligence demanded? Afterwards, the ship could have deposited the corpse in a Karachi dock and let Pakistanis decide what to do.

Or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? What a poor excuse for a government! Bury the corpse along with all the other people you execute for crimes ranging from sorcery to stealing bread to objecting to your ridiculous monarchy and its crimes against humanity.

We, the United States, can have military bases in democracy-movement-repressing Bahrain, but we can’t tell it to accept a corpse?

You may be saying, “This is a lot of verbiage over a corpse which belonged to a person whose actions deprived him of the right to consideration.” Frankly, if the US government said this, I would not object. My problem is the hypocrisy of saying that it respects Islamic customs while not respecting Pakistani Muslims to handle the corpse appropriately.

I wish somebody would compose an Antigone for this story. Creon punished Antigone for burying her dead brother Polyneices, who died in a rebellion against Creon. Obama is Creon, but Pakistan and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia aren’t courageous enough to be Antigone.

Update: Michael Moore’s tweets hit part of what I’m talking about:

I’m not opposed 2 dumping him in the sea, I agree no monument 4 a mass murderer, I just don’t need the added BS of “according 2 Mulism law.”

Yes, and to repeat, whenever I’ve gone 2 the funeral of a Muslim friend in Detroit, we all hop in a chopper & drop the body in Lake Erie.

Update #2: Unrelated, but fascinating: What happens when you’re buried at sea?

Update #3: Svend White wrote Osama bin Laden’s messy (and debatable) demise and we exchanged comments.

Update #4: Why won’t the U.S. government publicize the names of the Muslims who provide it religious consultation on Islam? Maybe we could learn a lot from them.

These are excerpts from whitehouse.gov transcripts of press briefings dealing with the killing and burial of Osama bin Laden.

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At the end of the May 2, 2011 White House press briefing, Press Secretary Jay Carney joked about assassinating Libyan President Muammar al-Qaddafi.

Q    Jay, almost lost in this news is the NATO strike against Qaddafi’s compound on Saturday, where his son was killed and three of his grandchildren.  Is it — does the White House believe that that mission was in keeping with carrying out the U.N. resolution?

      MR. CARNEY:  Yes.  And I think there have been ample — there’s been ample commentary about that from NATO.  So we do believe that, and obviously continue to focus on that mission as we do on other missions.

      Q    Is there a message there to Qaddafi in this?

      MR. CARNEY:  You could say that.  (Laughter.)  Thank you.