And the bands played on...

Currently: Procrastinating on some program evaluation work
Listening to: Radiohead, Coltrane, Britten's Cello Suite #3
Still loving and rewatching and quoting...: Sherlock
Reading up on: scary cuts in the UK

Something tells me this election night won't be near as fun as 2008, if for no other reason than I won't be chowing on oxtails with the great folks at Pritchard's in Lake Worth.
Yes, everything goes a wee bit better with music. Even make-you-crazy things like elections. The band on the Titanic didn't keep on for nothing, yeah?
Top of my head here, but did have to edit a bit since most of my playlists end up sprawling things that only I can see as relating to the theme. It may get updated as the day goes on...
I would love it if those of you out there in the ether would add your own tunes in the comments.

Electioneering by Radiohead
Beautiful Struggle by Talib Kweli
Love Me, I'm a Liberal by Ochs/covered by Jello Biafra
Democracy by Leonard Cohen
We Love Your Apathy by Skunk Anansie
Lawyers, Guns and Money by Warren Zevon
2+2=5 by Radiohead
Yes, It's Fucking Political by Skunk Anansie
Dad's Gonna Kill Me by Richard Thompson (Supposedly we're fighting at least two wars. Who knew?)
You Hate Me & I Hate You by GG Allin
Pretty Vacant by the Sex Pistols
Paranoia Key of E by Lou Reed
Who Invited You? by The Donnas
Mr. Bad Example by Warren Zevon
None of Us Are Free by Solomon Burke (R.I.P.)
Hard Times Come Again No More by S. Foster/covered by Nanci Griffith
Headless Heroes by Eugene McDaniels
Intervention by Arcade Fire
Monkey Island by 13th Floor Elevators
The Pill by Loretta Lynn (because lots of scary people still think they deserve a say in what a woman does with her body)
You Ain't Been Doin' Nothing if You Ain't Been Called a Red (and old IWW song)
Rednecks by Randy Newman (Post-racial? No. Not even close.)
Christ for President by W. Guthrie/covered by Billy Bragg & Wilco
This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie (or just about any of his other songs)
People Have the Power by Patti Smith
Peace/سلام

Where did it go?

Watching (and rewatching and loving and rewatching...): BBC's cracking new Sherlock
Listening to: Mc5, 13th Floor Elevators, Staple Singers, Coltrane, & fair bit of trad. Kurdish stuff
Reading for fun: The Psychology of Proof
Pondering: election night playlist - everything goes better with music (even inevitable, demoralizing wins by troglodytes & philistines); MacBook Air 2.0; some proper tea at 10

Dear, God. Wow. Nigh November now, which means almost December, which means almost finished here. My. Really, it's too deep in the semester to have much of importance or clarity to report. Still not sure where I'm going for my final internship now that Armenia fell through. I mentioned that, right? Turned out they want to do surveys & need interns with language skills other than mine. Thus, flux. Do know I land in Istanbul on 21 December and grateful to be back in the great city with friends. From there is anyone's guess at the moment. Which would be fun, if this internship wasn't so important to me. Not just a feather in the cap and all.
Anywho...back to working on policy briefs (urban refugees, survival migrants, Iraqi refugee crisis). I do love my policy briefs.
Peace/سلام

Sharpening focus

It's a rather profound thing to figure out what you're doing in a grand sense. I think, after all these years, I've gotten there or at least am headed in the right direction. It's a been a long process of pulling the bits and pieces together and discerning patterns, meanings and messages.

Who am I? A believer. I believe in multilateralism. Yeah, I do. My passport may say USA, but my vision is quite a bit wider than the horizon. As people have noted, I'm so macro-focused I'm meta.

What do I work on and want to keep working on? Forced migration and refugee issues.
It's no longer 1951, but the global refugee regime is a bit stuck there. Some are advancing some interesting ideas as to how we dislodge the regime from the mid 20th-century and I want to be in the middle of that discussion. "Survival migration", the urbanization of the world's refugee population, global policy diffusion, updating responses, use of soft law to expand the UNHCR mandate - Should we? Could we?...these are the things I love to wrestle with.
This is what I've dedicated my time and efforts toward recently and the direction in which I hope my work leads.

Some people find their focus naturally. Some are born with it. Figuring out mine has taken a bit of doing, but I think I'm getting there.
Peace/سلام

Liu Xiaobo, in his own words

"For hatred is corrosive of a person’s wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation's spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and block a nation’s progress to freedom and democracy. I hope therefore to be able to transcend my personal vicissitudes in understanding the development of the state and changes in society, to counter the hostility of the regime with the best of intentions, and defuse hate with love."
~Liu Xiaobo, December 23, 2009
Click on the quote to read his statement in its entirety.
Peace/سلام

Bad day on campus - UPDATE

UPDATE - I'm going to leave the last word on this week's suicide on my campus to John Woods, a fellow UT grad student and all-around remarkable person. By Tuesday afternoon, it was apparent this was, in fact, a suicide and not a school shooting. There have been a lot of discussions in my classes and just amidst colleagues about guns, but more often about finding new ways to reach out to those in need of help, how to be allies to those in trouble, for young people to counter stigmas and know when and how to seek help themselves. I hope we can work together to come up with solutions.

Tuesday:
In the midst of an unsettling incident on campus. Apparently there were two armed suspects on the UTexas-Austin campus in the main library (PCL). Campus is CLOSED at the moment and everybody's on lockdown. According to UT announcement one suspect is dead in the library and campus police are looking for another.

Please, UT folks, stay home and give first responders a break!
Will update with more when I have it.
I'm locked down in my department and in a meeting where few of us are really focusing.
Hope everybody out there is safe.

Everything's better with mariachis

My thoughts on this semester, as expressed by mariachis. Hat tip to the friend that sent this.
Feeling not so much like a brick in the wall as someone felled by a brick from the wall.
Is it December yet?
Peace/سلام

Next stop Armenia

Parev!
I am officially headed to Armenia come January for a 6-month internship with the UNHCR to round out my MSW program. I'll be working with the protection unit but should get more of a briefing now that things are finalized.

This means I'm brushing up on my limited Russian and starting to learn with the Armenian alphabet. I took a year of Russian way back in high school, but our teacher was more interested in telling us countless stories involving women and Gauloises. I do remember him mentioning Russian grammar as being akin to 52 pickup.

I'll likely leave the U.S. in mid-December and stop through Istanbul to see friends. My plan is to head East via train and may stop in Ardahan to see a friend's family before continuing overland through Georgia with a stop in Tiblisi. For now, I've classes to take and teach until the start of December and a bit more time to spend with friends and family.
Peace/سلام

Moving on

Listening to: Lots of Zevon
Reading: For class, always for class
Staring at: stack of untouched personal reading on the table *sigh*
Lauding: Kurt Sutter & SOA

First off, Çok mutlu Bayram, Eid mubarak and Shanah tovah to friends and family out there.

Slowly getting into the groove of this final semester. Had to sort out a classroom for my Friday classes after the Uni double booked my class with another, but we ended up with a better room. The students and I are happy to have exterior windows, though the building throws off a distinct higher ed circa 1950 vibe from the hospital green tiles and hourly bells down to the serious lack of women's bathrooms. And I dropped a class of my own yesterday. Didn't need to take it and it was not coming close to meeting my expectations, but it was still difficult for me. I think some part of my brain interpreted it as failure, which is silly. I'm moving on just fine, mind you.
That leaves me with three classes and the independent study in program evaluation. My advanced policy class is excellent and I love that my professor green lit me to develop my projects around my Fulbright proposal and migration/refugee policy improvements in Jordan and Turkey. My other interesting course involves us working with a rural Texas community on a few targeted projects. My group is working with a group of kids on some digital mapping projects, which I'll write more about once we drive up there on Monday.

Best news is that I am have some idea of where I am headed next year. I am still waiting to hear back about one possible placement with UNHCR I designed. However, if that falls through, I am headed to Armenia for my final internship. My department selected me and a friend for the UNHCR field internship. Bottom line, either way I'll be interning with UNHCR for six months, fleeing the U.S. in December with a very likely stopover my beloved Istanbul to see friends. Beyond happy, but think I'll finally let it in when everything's sorted for sure.
For now, have to run catch my bus.
Peace/سلام

Act of Kindness That Made My Day

UPDATE: Monday morning post from Velveteen Rabbi says over $1,000 raised.

Came across word of this effort on the Internets today.
A rabbinical student blogging as Velveteen Rabbi is, on her own, collecting donations to pay for the cleaning and/or replacement of the prayer rugs at al-Iman mosque in Queens, New York, which were ruined when an heavily inebriated man barged into the mosque earlier this week and urinated on the prayer carpets. The man was arrested and charged with criminal trespass. Initial reports claimed the man shouted anti-Muslim slurs, but latest reports from the NYPD are that congregation members said the man did not make slurs.

As of Friday night she'd raised about $600 from nearly 40 people.
The plan is to present a check to the congregation of the mosque next week.
If you would care to contribute, follow the link in the first sentence to her post and follow the instructions.

She admits they may have already dealt with the rugs, but wanted to do something for the congregation anyway.
It's the spirit of the thing, given all the rhetoric and worse these days.
That's what I want to believe this country is still about.
Something bad happens to your neighbor, so you help them out. Simple as that.
Make of it what you will, but it made my day.
Peace/سلام

Yes, we DO have a problem

As you've probably read, things are not well here at the moment when it comes to religious freedoms, constitutional rights, common sense and basic decency towards others.

Anti-mosque sentiment seems to be growing across the nation, well beyond the site of the Park 51 project. The latest case involves a store-front mosque in Kentucky. The property owner claimed he had no problem with Muslims worshiping there, but they couldn't park right. When asked what his feelings would be toward Baptist worshipers if a church opened in the space, he responded that those people would know how to park right.
Fear the Muslims, America! They may ding your car!
I might add that this man has obviously never met some of my Baptist relatives who are terrifying behind the wheel, though I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with their religious beliefs.

And, this morning brings news of a man barging into a mosque in NYC, berating worshipers and urinating on the prayer rugs.
That story follows the horrible and bizarre story of the NYC taxi driver stabbed by his fare after responding to a question about his religious beliefs. Some people emphasize that both men were drunk. A lot of us have been inebriated at some point in life. As a result, we've been stupid, rude, silly, nauseous and maybe even gotten in trouble. However, I'm pretty sure most of us have never stabbed somebody for their religious beliefs or relieved themselves in a house of worship. Much like other drunken behavior roundly condemned recently - anti-Semitic and racist remarks - there are certain lines most of us won't - CAN'T - cross even if under the heaviest of influences.

I was relieved to read that people in Gainesville, in my home state of Florida, have organized peaceful, interfaith actions to respond to a small, fringe church's plan to burn copies of the Quran on 11 September. The pastor claims he is burning them because they are "full of lies", which is rather ironic since the Quran is full of many of the same characters and narratives found in the Bible.

I can tell you from experience, this is not an issue solely of the Right. I have corrected false and, occasionally, pretty wretched comments from people who self-identify as being progressive or of the Left. And, as many have noted, those speaking out against all this anti-Muslim sentiment come from across the ideological spectrum. Who actually acts on misinformation and hatred is a different issue, beyond political division.

Stabbing people, burning sacred texts, urinating in houses of worship, denying worship space for reasons beyond real zoning issues, smearing an entire religion and all 1.5 million followers of that religion goes quite a but beyond "phobia", stupidity or lack of awareness.
This is hate, pure and simple. It is disgusting. It is dangerous. It is cancerous. It must be countered. And this goes for any issue of hate and discrimination.
If somebody says something that you know is not true, correct them.
If there is a movement to deny rights to members of your community, get active.
If you don't know enough, go learn, ask.
Don't know a Muslim? Call your local mosque and ask for a tour.
During the month of Ramadan, many mosques hold iftars (meals to break the daily fast) that are open to the whole community.
Aside from being a nice way to get to know others in your community and great learning opportunity, the food is often amazing and the mood joyous.
Just do something. To do nothing is to be complicit.
Peace/سلام

On World Humanitarian Day, a remembrance...

Today is World Humanitarian Day. This is a day to celebrate the remarkable work that people are engaging in together around the world to try to make the world a better place for everybody.

This day was selected because on 19 August, 2003, 22 people were killed, including SRSG Sergio Vieira de Mello, when a truck bomb was detonated outside the UN mission HQs in Baghdad.

Humanitarian work, development work, social work, whatever you want to call it...comes with risks, for those who practice it and those who benefit from it, in much of the world. So today is a day to remember those who have lost their lives and to celebrate the ideals and work they were willing to risk their lives for in the first place.

And here, again, is the awesome video for the campaign:


Peace/سلام

Hanging out with kids: good for the soul

At the moment: Grape-nuts, it's what's for dinner...at nearly 11pm. *sigh*
Listening to: People Have the Power by Patti Smith
Working on: Fulbright proposal & personal statement

I may not have any of my own, but I sure like kids. On the whole, I like them way more than grown-ups. All that non-linear thinking and such.
For example, anytime you ask my cousin's three year-old twins a question of "Why?" they will immediately and unfailingly answer with the deceptively simple, "That's why."
I can't figure out if it's more like a Zen koan or a politician's hollow non-answer.
The boy is a bit blasé about it, as though I should have know whatever it is all along. The girl sells the answer hard, punctuating with a jab of her hand and a roll of her eyes.
For three, they're pretty sure of themselves.
I'm going to try it out on my colleagues this semester.
Why?
That's why.
Peace/سلام

So what if it IS a mosque?

There are a lot of things going on out there right now to think about and write about. Social Security, one of our most effective anti-poverty efforts, just turned 75 years young. One fifth of Pakistan is underwater with all the attendant humanitarian tragedy. U.S. combat troops are trooping out of Iraq - all done, lights out, thanks for the memories! The Lebanese and Israelis are really jumpy about tree pruning along their borders. People are once again laying bets about the likelihood of somebody - us, Israel, us, Israel...- striking Iran within the coming year. Russia is on fire. Darfur is still a mess. The UN is returning to Somalia, but there's still no functioning government. Yemen may run out of water. Gaza is still Gaza....

A lot of arguing and debating and work to be done, for sure.

However, one story that is not about a real debate at all is the so-called "debate" over the erroneously named "Ground Zero Mosque". I bring it up again because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) today came out in favor of relocating the project. In short, he failed to lead and instead caved to the bigots.

No, it's not simply a mosque, it's a community center. Now, I kind of always think of mosques as community centers anyway. I've seen pilgrims sing and picnic in the Umayyad mosque in Damascus. Beat the midday heat with men and women under the eaves of al-Azhar in Cairo. Laughed at children chasing each other through countless prayer halls. I've watched groups of women conduct classes together at Eyup Mosque and had tea with the bawab of Kuçuk Aya Sofia and an amused group of elderly Turkish men who were respectfully curious about the foreign girl who had stuck around for the Friday khutba (sermon). They aren't like houses of worship that are primarily open one day a week for a few services. They are centers of their community and neighborhood. You come to meet, learn, laugh, eat, sleep, maybe do a little business...and often pray.

No, it's not at ground zero, but rather a few blocks away. It's in an old building that last housed a Burlington Coat Factory. And there's been a prayer space there for some time now. And the sky has yet to fall. To quote someone from the Internet, "When can we start calling it the Burlington Coat Factory mosque?" Did I mention there's a Muslim prayer space inside the Pentagon? You remember - the other site where people were killed on September 11th, 2001. Where the U.S. Department of Defense is headquartered. And nobody there seems to mind.

I met Faisal Abdul Rauf briefly, several years ago, after a wonderful interfaith worship service he'd participated in at the ornate cathedral in Louisville, Kentucky. I introduced myself, welcomed him to town and talked with him about Islam and Sufism a bit. He shook my hand, was a thoughtful speaker, generous with his time and unfailingly polite. Not big news, unless you're somebody trying to make him an evil demagogue. And, if you know anything about Cordoba under the Arabs...

And yet, even if it weren't something akin to the YMCA or the JCC. If it were solely an Islamic house of worship. If it were smack atop the World Trade Center site....
Thanks to our constitution and the rights guaranteed by that document that we ALL are supposed to enjoy, the developers would have every right to open their doors. I am reminded of Colin Powell's laudable comments regarding Muslim-Americans and the rumor mongering by some during the 2008 presidential campaign that, gasp, Obama is a Muslim: "So what if he is?!"

In fact, I'm incredibly tired of people pushing back with those two arguments: it's not at "Ground Zero" and it's not just a mosque. The simple fact is, it should not matter. Push back on the fact that it is against the intent and beliefs of our founding fathers, one of our founding documents, the rights we like to flaunt to the world to show how advanced we supposedly are. Push back against the fact that it is simply wrong. No caveats needed.

Living in majority Muslim countries, I sometimes meet people who are shocked when I tell them we have Muslims living in the U.S. I've corrected people who believed Islam is illegal here, that mosques are banned, that there are only Christians here. And I have corrected people who believe Americans hate Muslims.

"You can't be American," people declare. "But you speak Arabic!" "But you know about Islam, about our history!"
"Your father or your grandfather must be Arab," they insist.
Nope, I'm just an ajnabia, just an American girl who fell in love with the place and people. Somebody who believes both are so much more than most give them credit for. Who believes that the region will not be helped with guns alone. And I've been proved right on both counts again and again.

So all this cowardly, bigoted talk - let's be honest - against the Cordoba House project and Muslims in general hits me especially hard. And it leaves me supremely disappointed in those who love flying a flag on their car, but who obviously don't really believe in the founding principles of this country. I am disappointed in those who should know better, or who do but refuse to speak out, or who couch the argument in mild terms.

You want to fight al-Qaeda and the like? Support Cordoba House and when it opens hold the mother of all opening ceremonies: lots of crowds, VIPs and global media coverage. Corporate sponsorships, even. Lots of quotes and video clips on the importance of tolerance, freedoms, spaces for dialogue in our society. The fact that we are all Americans. All of us.

This isn't just about a mosque, though, it's about all of us in this country.
Are we who we claim to be as a country, as an ideal?
Right now, I'm not so sure.
Peace/سلام

PS: Here's something to consider...

Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary

ARTICLE 11

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Social Media and Crisis Response

Social media is a big nebulous thing that is not always useful (Lookin' at you Facebook). However, I've been following the live stream of the Red Cross Emergency Social Data Summit today and it's been very exciting to listen to all the uses of and possibilities for social media in emergency response and, I'd say, international aid and development. If you're into it, you can catch the replay here, I think.
And there's a really interesting ongoing conversation on Twitter at #crisisdata.
Peace/سلام

Where were my drummers this morning?

Ramadan karim to all my friends and loved ones out there.
Though I'm subletting in a clatch of cottages full of musicians, no drummers came around to wake me up in the pre-dawn hours.
Hope everybody makes it through these long, hot summer days alright. Enjoy those great nights together with friends and family and food.
Peace/سلام