apropos of anything

….but I don’t feel the least bit tired, and it’s game seven of the ALCS, and the Sox are down by two in the bottom of the eighth, and I kind of secretly want the Rays to win (even though the Red Sox are my American League team, and why yes, you can have favorites by league, thanks for asking) because the Red Sox are kind of the new Yankees, and I kind of want to see this out-of-nowhere team make it to the World Series, especially because I am not one of those Fox television execs who are no doubt are busily sacrificing goats and chickens and everything else they can reach in hopes that the Red Sox win.

Update: And the Rays win. Guess those Fox execs should have pulled out the big guns. In the meantime, I am mourning my poor Sox (yes, I rooted against them, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy to see them lose) and rolling my eyes at Chip Caray: “After all those years of futility, [the Rays] finally have something to celebrate.” Way to be a downer there, Chip.

I gave Nooreen a copy and realized that it has been years since I read my own copy. When I started, it only took getting to the author’s note to remind me why I loved The Book of Three so much as a kid. So, in lieu of more politics (wanna know what I thought about the debate? check out my Twitter (why yes, I do Twitter now) page), here’s a little Lloyd Alexander for you:

“‘In some cases,’ he said, ‘we learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself. This is one of those cases. I could tell you why, but at the moment it would only be more confusing. If you grow up with any kind of sense — which you sometimes make me doubt — you will very likely reach your own conclusions. They will probably be wrong,’ he added. ‘However, since they will be yours, you will feel a little more satisfied with them.’”

Currently reading (in addition to The Book of Three): A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon and Sabriel by Garth Nix.

I have been looking forward to this election since November 3, 2004. I have been counting the days until the entire world can rejoice at the end of the Bush administration. But the reason I want this election cycle to be over already has nothing to do with my desire to put a fork in the Bush Jr.’s legacy or the undeniable truth that somebody somewhere has been campaigning for president since 2002 and dear GOD that is a long time to be building up to an election. The reason I want this election cycle to be over already is because it’s gotten so freaking ugly I can’t stand it anymore.

Muslim family on the streets of New York City. We’re just like everyone else, you know.
Click on the image for the original Flickr page.

I first noticed it when McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. Sorry, Palin fans. It’s not a partisan slam. When I heard her speak at the Republican National Convention, I had a scary moment of wondering what my life as an American Muslim would be like under a government headed by this woman who makes absolutely no secret of her dislike of the people of my faith. I’m sure if you ask, she’d qualify that she means only the TERRORIST Muslims, but to listen to her speak, there’s really no other kind, and nowhere in all her posturing does she ever make me believe that she would care that I have no terrorist designs whatsoever before she locked me up in a SuperMax somewhere and threw away the key.

Maybe that’s not what she believes, but it’s what I hear when she speaks, and I am the one who is usually unrelentingly optimistic and cheerful about the future of Islam in America. I am the one who agrees wholeheartedly with Imam Magid that there is no country on this Earth that is better for Muslims to live in than the United States because of all the freedoms and protections that are available here. I am the one who points to the incredible post-9/11 support of American Muslims as evidence that no, we are not in danger being put into of internment camps like the Japanese were during World War II.

And yet, Sarah Palin scares me.

What scares me more is that John McCain, a man I would have described four years ago as “honorable”, is tacitly encouraging this campaign tactic by not shutting it down or reigning in his surrogates. If John McCain expects me to ever consider him as a possibility for the office of the presidency (and if I am honest, that ship probably sailed in February, if not before), he needs to make me feel like he would be representing me and mine instead of just the people who look and think like him.

More than that, I resent this innuendo that somehow there is something wrong or “evil” with being Muslim. Frank Rich touches on it, Campbell Brown attacks it head-on, and Jon Stewart knocked it out of the park tonight.

I would really love to meet Sarah Palin or John McCain in person (her more than him because I do honestly think that somewhere in there the original John McCain is disgusted with the levels he’s stooped to) and ask them why it’s okay for them to spin me and mine as though we’re all always secretly scoping the joint to find the best place to put the C4 and why they think “Muslim” and “good person” (or “Muslim” and “American”) are mutually exclusive.

In the meantime, I suppose I’ll take comfort in knowing that the team at Five Thirty Eight is against Muslim-murdering Presidential Christian babies !FOR! Ohio.

What does it say about me that I am seriously contemplating mimicking Sarah Palin’s choice in footware?

The shoe Sarah Palin wore to the VP debate
(but I’m guessing hers was in black)

Not because she wore them, of course, but because they’re cute, but still….

Because I no longer have a place to list out what I’m currently reading…

I finally finished last month’s book club book, Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee by Meera Syal. I know, I’m so behind. I have to admit I had my reservations about this selection after the disastrous Mistress of Spices (Raven? really?), but Syal’s novel proves to be a much stronger effort than Divakaruni’s Harlequin-wrapped-in-paan. However, I do think this book will only really register for foreign-born desis, as so many of its themes are rooted in the ABCD experience (or in this case, BBCD experience), and I don’t feel like Syal ever makes an effort to reach an audience outside her base.

In one scene, film-maker Tania, while arguing about her career path with her agent Mark, says, “No more grubbing in the ghetto, I’m mainstream now.” And Mark replies, “The ghetto got you where you are today, Tania. It’s what makes you different. And a good story is a mainstream story, end of story.” I think Syal identifies more with Sunita, based on her decision to play Sunny in the BBC miniseries version of the book, but I have to wonder whether Tania’s exchange with Mark isn’t lifted straight out of Syal’s own life.

There is another scene in the book where someone tells Tania, “You don’t live here any more. And this stuff is not for tourists. Go home.” She is referring not to Tania’s residence but to her identity, in essence calling Tania out for being more white than brown, and I think this is also something Syal has taken to heart — that in order to be a true artist, you have to know and accept who you are, even the parts you may not like. Tania gets there eventually, as I think Syal has in this book that is entirely and unapologetically brown.

While I do not think Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee is on the same epic, soaring level as Ian McEwan’s Atonement (and I should disclose that I am the only one of my book club who liked that book, and also that I did not like it so much as love it and that I consider it a masterpiece of modern literature), I’d recommend for a quick weekend read. It’s chick-lit, but chick-lit with a purpose beyond bagging the perfect boyfriend/husband/job, and even the non-desis should be able to find something they like about Chila, Sunita, and Tania to keep turning pages until the end.

Still working on the Harry Potter re-read that I started during suhoor in Ramadan (because I need something to do while eating breakfast at 5:15, and reading a book I’ve already read and know well works better than reading something new because then I don’t suddenly find myself so caught up in the story that I must know what happens and I keep reading until ishraq, and also because I ran out of cookbooks to read). I finished through Half-Blood Prince before Eid (actually, I started Deathly Hallows the night before), so I just have a little bit left to go before I put Harry away again. Also I promised to get Nooreen a copy of The Book of Three because I figure anyone who loves Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings should read the Prydain Chronicles at some point in their lives, if only to be reminded that sometimes the journey is more important than the destination.

Next up: This month’s book club book, A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon, who also wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Also, my list is about to run dry, so I am looking for recommendations if anyone wants to volunteer any.

He held back during the debate. Pulled his punches. Swallowed the opportunities — and there were many — to point out that Sarah Palin was talking out of her derriere. And as a result, while he might have come off as more knowledgeable and more informed than Palin, while he might have been more comfortable with his answers and more able to actually respond to the questions asked, sometimes Joe Biden too came off looking a little coached.

But then at the end Ifill asked each candidate about their Achilles’ heel, and while I found Palin’s response characteristic of her detached, robotic, cue card-filled performance all night, Joe Biden went and did this:

…and he got me. Truly got me. That wasn’t Joe Biden sticking to the script, or following through with his coaching. That wasn’t Joe Biden being a politician. That was Joe Biden being Joe Biden, a man who has had to deal with some truly awful things and who I believe when he says he understands. And when he became a human and not a senatorial talking head, I thought, am I glad Barack Obama picked this man to be his vice president.

Oh, and also, I want to know what kind of parenting techniques Sarah Palin is applying when she allows her five-month-old to be used as a political prop instead of leaving him with a sitter or a relative so he can be asleep in his crib like all the other five-month-olds are at 11 p.m.

Dear Sarah Palin,

I am not a fifteen year old boy. I am also not a twenty-five year old man, or a forty-year old man, or a sixty-two year old man, or a man of any kind. Please stop winking at me. Please stop using words like “ya” and dropping your g’s and generally behaving like a high school cheerleader cozying up to the captain of the football team.

If you want to be taken seriously, act like a professional. Otherwise, get off the stage. This is an embarrassment to real, dedicated women everywhere.

–Huda

P.S. Also, if you could please maybe answer the question that is asked at some point, that would be lovely. (See? I can be feminine too.)

I know it’s not John McCain’s campaign sending out the DVDs. But… it’s also not John McCain telling anyone to stop.

I know it’s not John McCain’s campaign piping a “chemical irritant” into a room full of children who were waiting for their mothers to finish their taraweeh prayer. But… it’s also not John McCain being outraged that something like this could happen.

They’re acting on his behalf. He needs to take a stand. The fact that he doesn’t reinforces yet again why I plan to vote for the other guy.

The men during prayer at Al Farooq, possibly maghrib just after iftaar, or maybe taraweeh during the week. Click on the image to go back to the original Flickr page.

Friday night was khatamul Quran at Al Farooq (and at ICNF, and in Augusta, and, I’m sure in half a dozen other mosques around the metro Atlanta area (not that Augusta is metro Atlanta by any means, but I know for sure they had it there). It’s one of the Ramadan rituals that I will always find a way to try to attend, even if it means contorting myself and my schedule in spectacular pretzel-like fashion. I love the crescendo leading up to the final surahs, and I love the du’a at the end, and I love the powerful emotional impact of feeling like you’ve accomplished something as you stand there at the end, thinking through all the surahs that have been read through all the nights of prayer over the past 27 days (because Al Farooq, like most other mosques, always finishes on the 27th night). This year was especially beautiful, in our brand new spacious masjid that despite its size was packed to the brim, so much that people were praying on out in the marble hallways.

And I love the post-khatam days when the taraweeh no longer has a daily script, freeing the imam to read the surahs people recognize, like Ar-Rahman or Ya Sin, so that even though the prayers themselves are shorter, the connection, the focus remains because instead of concentrating on the progress through the Quran you are instead concentrating on the verses you know so well. But the arrival of the post-khatam days also means the month is almost over, and while that makes me sad every year, this year it’s like a physical hurt, like I can’t catch my breath, because how can Ramadan already be over?

Woman in a mosque in Indonesia.
The photo was featured in the Boston Globe; click on the link to get the full set.

I think it is because I know that this year I did not do all that I could, that this year I let the length of the day and the demands of my job interfere with my dedication to Ramadan, and I want another week, or two if I could get it, to do it all the right way. And because I take indescribable comfort in the structure of Ramadan, the pattern it gives my days; while they might be difficult and busy, when I am on my game and taking full advantage of all the month has to offer, they are also incredibly satisfying.

I will miss Ramadan. I want it to stay.

Pakistani boy prepares for iftaar in Karachi.
Photo was originally featured in the Boston Globe; click on the image for the full set.

But I suppose we can’t always get what we want, so instead of being sad over the course of the remaining few days, I am going to take advantage of this 29th night of Ramadan, a possible lailatul qadr night because He says to call on Him and He will answer. I began this post with the intention of sharing again, but I don’t think I can anymore, so instead — mubarak, and enjoy the end of Ramadan, and pray for me, please, because I will be praying for you.

Because seriously, I am in awe that everyone isn’t as floored by this as I am:

The James Fallows analysis is here.

And no, I don’t think the Obama campaign should hammer away at her in lieu of McCain. They’re right that McCain’s running for president, and therefore McCain should be the focus of their attention, but the more this woman speaks, the more I question McCain’s judgment.

Also, I am seriously offended by the number of times she worked “Islamic terrorist” into that brief clip. As I’ve said before, a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist. Who he prays to at night doesn’t really factor into the equation… or, at least, it shouldn’t.