http://www.inquisitor.com/ Inquisitor Mediarama: Everything your radical, zine-reading, 90210-hating, New York-was living, Beirut-is living, blog-despising, Islam-curious self could want to know. Wasting corporate bandwidth since 1995. en Copyright © 2008, Daniel Drennan/Inquisitor Mediarama, all rights reserved (or as noted). Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:05 EST Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:05 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss091 http://www.inquisitor.com/ART/rss_logo1.gif http://www.inquisitor.com/ 88 31 Mediarama: Wasting corporate bandwidth since 1995. http://www.inquisitor.com/pcgi-bin/NYD.cgi?NA=NYD&AC=File&DA=20080611GUS&TO=OW Dennis Kucinich represents Ohio's 10th Congressional District. Resolved, That President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:[....Go to http://www.inquisitor.com/NYDiary/ for full text of entry.] http://www.inquisitor.com/pcgi-bin/NYD.cgi?NA=NYD&AC=File&DA=20080607GUS&TO=AP Before I moved back to Lebanon, my family chipped in and bought me a new laptop. My friends welcomed my entrance into the modern world of technology; I had refused to upgrade from various doorstop models of Macintosh computers for decades, but now had a cute little white (discontinued) G3 iBook for about 800 bucks. Most importantly, it ran System 9 along with the watery and drippy OSX, making for an easier upgrade path--or so I thought.I migrated my stuff to the new computer with the usual days lost of work as I got used to the thing. It was very slow. The interface was eminently annoying, especially the cartoonish Bulging Dock that leapt out at every stray cursor movement, even worse than previous "helpful" avatars of animated paper clips and even stranger assisting dogs. But I got used to it, more or less.[....Go to http://www.inquisitor.com/NYDiary/ for full text of entry.] http://www.inquisitor.com/pcgi-bin/media.cgi?NA=Media&AC=List&SC=One&DI=Reviews&SU=www&FI=100 Library Juice Press reflects a sense of the world through a librarian's eyes, in the sense of reading and the sharing of knowledge as a public good, and the impingement of that good as a politically willful misdeed. Good reading about reading as linked to politics and culture. --Daniel Drennan http://www.inquisitor.com/pcgi-bin/media.cgi?NA=Media&AC=List&SC=One&DI=Reviews&SU=www&FI=101 I found this site through a link to their collected stories of "Narratives Under Siege", which give us a portrait of those suffering under occupation in Palestine. These stories reflect the incredible Sabr (patience in the face of adversity) of a people that won't bow to its oppressors. --Daniel Drennan http://www.inquisitor.com/pcgi-bin/media.cgi?NA=Media&AC=List&SC=One&DI=Reviews&SU=www&FI=099 La Vaca is a workers' collective in Argentina that tirelessly advocates for radical change in the Americas through collective ownership, land reform, and a putting words into action. Highly recommended. --Daniel Drennan http://www.inquisitor.com/pcgi-bin/media.cgi?NA=Media&AC=List&SC=One&DI=Reviews&SU=printmedia&FI=016 ISR is the magazine published by the International Socialist Organization; each issue gives a sense of the big picture playing out on the global level and how the economic crises engendered by capitalism are manifesting themselves in wars, famine, inequality, etc. Although the picture portrayed is bleak, the sense that there is an activist element that refuses to be subdued by the Powers That Be leaves one slightly more hopeful in the face of it all. --Daniel Drennan http://www.inquisitor.com/pcgi-bin/media.cgi?NA=Media&AC=List&SC=One&DI=Books&SU=islam&FI=013 Ali Rahnema presents us with a thoroughly engaging and complete biography of one of Iran's major intellectual figures. Ali Shari'ati was a teacher and revolutionary, whose mixture of Marxism and Islam prefigures much of current political Islam today. But to leave it at that is to do complete injustice to the complexity of his thought, his words, his inspirations. And whereas the concept of "utopian" is considered these days to be pejorative, the life of Shari'ati gives us a glimpse of its possibilities and the chance to reclaim the term. Highly recommended. --Daniel Drennan http://www.inquisitor.com/pcgi-bin/media.cgi?NA=Media&AC=List&SC=One&DI=Books&SU=islam&FI=014 Approaching the Qur'an as a non-native-Arabic speaker is not easy, and the choices are both overwhelming in number as well as underwhelming in translation. Some of the more famous, such as that by A.J. Arberry, attempt the impossible--bringing to the English a sense of the resonance and beauty found in the untranslatable original; likewise the dead-as-dead-can-be Penguin Classics version. To use a bad analogy, a dis-assembled 3-D puzzle or clockworks on display as pieces gives little in the way of added insight into the interlocking perfection and beauty of the original. Other translations aim to please particular politics within Islam, such as those published under the auspices of Saudi Arabia or other Gulf monarchies; they often include pedantic references to hadith that are like sledgehammer blows of literal-mindedness. I took a chance when ordering this volume, which shipped from overseas sight unseen, but I am glad that I did. Muhammad Asad's approach to the Qur'an reflects both his conversion and interest in Islam as a guiding principle, but also brings insight based on the time he spent with Gulf Arab bedouins whose language has in certain cases remained unchanged since the times of the Prophet. More importantly, he includes extensive notes from various recognized exegeses, while also giving his opinion, which thankfully reflects an understanding of this book-as-revealed-instant, to be examined as a whole. Further, each page includes the original Arabic, a phonetic translation, as well as his translation and accompanying notes; he goes to great lengths to make up for the extremely elliptical Arabic original, while always pointing out the reasons for his particular translation of certain words and phrases. In reading every day, I am more and more grateful to this work which provides a welcome (and welcoming) bridge to Islam. Of special note: The currently revised edition is in a boxed set of six volumes, which are much more wieldy than the daunting original. --Daniel Drennan