apropos of anything

Ivan started this one by sending me a link to the story about hobbit-sized human remains, saying perhaps The Lord of the Rings was a true story after all. I then had to clue him in on an unfortunate truth:

huda: hmm
huda: maybe
huda: and g.w. bush is saruman
ivan: oh no
huda: being controlled by dick cheney
huda: who is sauron
ivan: now i’m scared
huda: you should be
ivan: who is going to destroy the ring?
huda: BUSH ALREADY HAS THE RING

Followed by incontrovertible proof:

One ring to rule them all, right?

(But I found it on the blog of a woman who today will lose the second of her twin babies, having already lost the first earlier in the week. Send thoughts and prayers her way, please.)

“Senator John Kerry goes toward the election with a base that is built more on opposition to George W. Bush than loyalty to his own candidacy. But over the last year we have come to know Mr. Kerry as more than just an alternative to the status quo. We like what we’ve seen. He has qualities that could be the basis for a great chief executive, not just a modest improvement on the incumbent.

We have been impressed with Mr. Kerry’s wide knowledge and clear thinking – something that became more apparent once he was reined in by that two-minute debate light. He is blessedly willing to re-evaluate decisions when conditions change. And while Mr. Kerry’s service in Vietnam was first over-promoted and then over-pilloried, his entire life has been devoted to public service, from the war to a series of elected offices. He strikes us, above all, as a man with a strong moral core.”

I don’t expect anyone to be swayed by what the Times thinks. I certainly wouldn’t if they were presenting a pro-Bush argument. It’s just something to think about.

Plus, the positive spin on the “flip-flop” issue is amusing.

…we’ll have decided the direction our country will take for the next four years, for better or for worse. Let’s hope it’s for better.

Remember to vote, y’all.

Because I am sick. And tired. And very cranky. And irritated. And did I mention sick?

Peace and blessings on you all. May you have a joyous Ramadan

I said, “I really don’t like George Lucas. Han Solo shot first.”
Ken said, “I have no idea what that means.”
I said, “!!!!!!”

I said, “Ivan, Ken doesn’t know what I mean when I say Han Solo shot first.”
Ivan said, “What DO you mean?”

I went to the bathroom and cried.

Guess how far behind I am, y’all. Go ahead, guess. I’ll wait.

Ready?

I just now realized that we’re into October. My wall calendar still says September. If that’s not a sign of the state of my life at the moment, I don’t know what is.

On another note, the vice presidential debate is tonight at 9 p.m. I’m expecting courtroom wizard John Edwards to leave Dick Cheney a small blubbery mess when he’s done. I hope I am not disappointed.

Also, any Georgians who have not yet registered to vote: as of yesterday evening, it is now too late. You officially suck. No, you really do. Go sit in a corner and think about what you did (not do).

That’s what the God avatar told Joan on this week’s Joan of Arcadia. What he meant was that we are responsible for stepping in and helping out when others need us to, even if they don’t realize they need us to. We are responsible for recognizing that something is wrong. It’s why Kevin retains some guilt over his accident and why Joan has guilt over Judith’s hospitalization; both characters could have done more to prevent those outcomes.

That is not to say there is no such thing as personal responsibility, just that personal responsibility for an action often extends to more than one person. John Donne said it when he wrote that no man was an island. Shaykh Hamza Yusuf said it tonight when he advised us to consider every action we take because if we do something that causes someone to react, we are responsible for the reaction.

And that is why we, the Muslim community of the world, need to do more than we are doing.

The Prophet Muhammad warned us to beware of extremism in religion as it destroyed the people who came before us. There is just as much extremism in too much religion as there is in too little; those who have too little lose their connection with God, and those who have too much falsely justify every wrong action as being the will of God. There is a story about the Prophet Muhammad during the Miraj; the angel Gabriel offered him a glass of water, a glass of milk, and a glass of wine, and he chose the milk. When asked about it later, he said the wine was too rich and the water too poor, so he chose the one in the middle, the milk. Beware the extremism.

Shaykh Hamza said tonight, “We are losing the message of Islam, which is mercy.” And he quoted the Prophet Muhammad as saying, “You will not believe unless you have mercy,” and further explained the Prophet did not mean only mercy to other Muslims but universal mercy to all humanity.

We have, as a religious community, lost our mercy, I think. For every scholar or Muslim representative who condemns the Beslan seige or the beheadings in Iraq, there are two more who hedge and fuss and find a way to justify it all. Suicide bombings and insurgency are not the Islamic way, and we have to do something about it. That is our responsibility. We cannot continue to pretend there’s a good reason or it’s okay because it’s happening in Palestine or Iraq. “The essence of this religion,” said Shaykh Hamza, “is to break the cycles of violence.” Redress is permitted in Islam, but forgiveness is encouraged, and he who forgives today will receive forgiveness from Allah later.

I don’t expect this viewpoint will be very popular at the local masjid, but that’s okay. Shaykh Hamza said something else last night, too: “Our prophet did not stand by his tribe. He stood by truth. … We have an absolute obligation to speak the truth.” That was the theme of his talk — truth at all costs, regardless of how much it might upset us. And the truth of this matter is that we have to step up, we have to speak out, we have to stop tacitly encouraging terrorists by refusing to say out loud what we all know: there is no justification for what they are doing. There is no Islam in what they are doing.

Keep your eyes open, y’all.