Had a kababfest last night. Good times. Even fired up the ole’ shisha. I really want to get a proper hookah from home. Anyone coming? Speaking of home…anyone read from Aberdeen? CM brother #2 just moved there and should have a friendly chat with you. It is getting cold and rainy already. Continuing with the non-sequitors, we finished the first season of Lost. Not too bad, I guess. The beginning disc and half and the ending disc and a half were good. Rest were cheesy fillers. However, good old sven got me the season of firefly in anticipation of the movie. Gotta get watching that. Actually, what I really want to watch is Cronenberg’s History of Violence. On to the links, Christian soldiers.
- If she’s a zombie: She loves you, but only for your brains.
- I am sure everyone heard about the big rally in D.C. Satter went because you were too lazy to.
- I said it then, I will say it now. The Iraq war will be remembered through this lens [the caption says "The New Iraq"].
- Religion. Some contentious comments on my post on Youhana below. I expected that because it is a tricky matter. To make things right, let me point you towards the fringes and the fringes.
- Simon Schama takes on slavery during the American Revolution in Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution. Alex Butterworth gives a glowing review in the Guardian. Richard Morin, in the WaPo, argues that the legacy of slavery persists. Although, I am _really_ baffled by the last third of that column. I mean, REALLY.
- I won’t be reading Shalimar the Clown but I did read Pankaj Mishra’s take on it in NYRB. “This may be because they [Gabriel Garc‚àö‚â†a M‚àö¬∞rquez and G‚àö¬∫nter Grass] suspect that the novel, once uprooted from its home in the local and the specific, may also lose its ability to say anything original and provocative about the larger human condition; that, set afloat in the abstract realm of the “global,” a novel is likely to gather up and discard more characters and settings than it can satisfactorily evoke.” The piece should make Kakatuni blush.
- Where’s Osama? Read a selection from Robert Fisk’s book. Fisk is not welcome here, it appears.
- Ponting is Bush?. David Runicam’s must-read on the Ashes in the LRB. Also a look at the up-coming English tour of Pakistan by Qamar Ahmed.
I’ve got friends who used to live in Aberdeen. By all accounts it never really *stops* being cold and rainy. Except when it’s cold and snowy. (And they should know, they moved there from Shetland.) Your brother might want to read the hilarious rant about Aberdeen in the opening pages of Christopher Brookmyre’s A big boy did it and ran away. I’m told it’s all true.
Me and my friends called Ponting George Bush for the whole Ashes series, and before. It’s a perfect nickname for facilitating quick-as-that pub gags…And he IS George Bush.
Hey sepoy, how did you miss this juicy story from Mazdak?
Duly noted, Quizman. And this at the vaunted event personally arranged by Ms. Nilofer Bakhtiar [the Pakistani Karen Hughes]!
rob: i never made the connection before but now i have more concrete evidence for why i never, ever, liked Ponting
sharon: all the rants about scotland, i learned from Irvine Welsh. Brookmyre’s looks worth reading.
I got the hubby a stellar sheesha from Islamabad. Remind me next time I head home that you want one, ‘k?
On lynching, I think that that back third is from a diff article. That’s all that can make sense. This is an intriguing study, though, but the whys of it are not anywhere near to being dis-covered.
Personal to Raver: I sent you a friendster msg. I will try to IM you tomorrow.