TV as a Form of Social Programming

Noor is doing peacefully what Bush was never able to accomplish: colonizing people effectively by entertaining them instead of bombing them. Had Bush been smart about it and opened a cross-cultural exchange with Iraqis, he could have probably had all the oil he's currently getting at a fraction of the price and with more security. Then again, Bush did Iraqi Muslims a favour by bombing them; they wouldn't have returned to our religion otherwise. I'm now beginning to appreciate the subtle, forward-seeing intelligence of the Muslim Electorate of US Elections 2000.

Another show that was an obvious case of social programming was Three's Company. Mr. Roper was the anti-homosexual straw man that we could all laugh at for being a backwards prude. The idea is that if you portray your enemy as a dolt, people will stop relating to him and everything he stands for. Mr. Roper was essentially Hollywood's representation of what it meant to oppose homosexuality. In a classic straw man argument, Hollywood attacked a weakened opponent.

Health Stories

In case you didn't know already, soy is bad for men's virility. I think this story should be tagged as, "Duh!" Doesn't everyone know this by now?

Also in the news, detox gone wrong.

I keep wondering when people are going to put away their fads and just eat a traditional diet.

Frugal Fat Fun

I don't eat vegetable oils (with a few exceptions, such as olive and sesame seed oils) for health reasons. (Yes, I know that everything you've heard so far is that vegetable oils are better for you than naturally saturated fats, so maybe it's time you read Know Your Fats, put together by the Weston A. Price Foundation. The whole philosophy of the WAPF is to follow a traditional diet.)

The problem these days is that affordable naturally saturated fat is getting harder to come by. Super Market Al-Madina Al-Riyadiyya used to carry clarified butter from Egypt but they're out of stock now. (I'm not sure if this is permanent or temporary.) All they carry now is European or Australian, which is about 11 JD for 2 kg or less; the Egyptian equivalent was under 6 JD. There is no local clarified cow butter, only clarified sheep butter, which is also pricey.

An alternative is to buy fatty sheep tail (Ar. layyah, or ilyah/alyah if you want to be pedantic), which the butcher shops currently sell at 2 JD/kg. Ask them to get you a bunch of them and grind them up in their meat grinders. You can then melt them down in a pot on low heat. Leave it until you get a pot full of pure, rendered liquid fat with some cracklings floating on top. Scoop off the cracklings with a perforated serving spoon or filter them out using a metal filter. Add salt to the cracklings and enjoy. The liquid fat delivers an extremely nasty burn, so be careful. Be sure to avoid having the fat come into contact with water so it doesn't splatter. Also, if the fat is kept away from moisture, it won't need to be refrigerated for months. Don't pour hot liquids into plastic as it can release unhealthy chemicals. Instead, use metal or glass. Glass will generally not shatter if you put a long metal object in it while pouring a hot liquid into it. Once the fat cools, it will be a solid, white substance called, "tallow." (The equivalent product from pig fat is called, "lard.")

You might wonder how anyone in their right mind would consider using such a substance as a substitute for butter. In fact, gourmet European and American baked goods are often made with lard, so tallow presents a halal substitute.

How to Ripen Fruit

To help your fruit ripen, try any of the following:

1. Put it in a brown paper bag and roll the top of the bag shut on it.
2. Wrap the fruit in newspaper.
3. Burn a kerosene lamp next to it.

I've tried the first two; the third I heard about in high school but never tried.

The Anti-Careless Email Filter

There are numerous ways to spell Abu Fluffy:

1. Standard anglophone spelling: Abu Fluffy.
2. Arabs whose first language is not English might spell it: Abo Fluffy.
3. En français: Abou Flouffy.
4. Salafi spelling: Aboo Flufee.
5. Weird spelling: Abu Phluphy.

It turns out that my real name is spelled en français, and my work email address looks something like abouflouffy@someclothingcompany.com. I have thought about the possibility of adding abufluffy and all other common spellings as email aliases so that I don't ever miss an important email. However, I decided against it. Why would I ever want to receive emails from people who are too lazy or careless to look up my email address, ask for it, transcribe it from my business card properly, or write it down properly over the phone? I actually now think that the unusual spelling of my name is a blessing: it keeps the careless out of my inbox.

Originally, I was going to refer to such careless people as idiots, but it turns out that one of my best friends is a graduate from Columbia (and intuitively it seems that there must exist a definition of idiot that Ivy League graduates don't fit) and he made this very mistake. This is the guy who landed me my current job and facilitated my move to Amman, for which I am very grateful. He left my employer just as I joined it, and I told him that, despite my love for him as a friend, I was very relieved that he left the company; I knew I'd never be able to work with someone like him. I mean, how difficult is it really to look up someone's email address or ask for it before sending off an email that ends up getting lost? Duh!

For a while, I thought that I was pedantic and unforgiving of mistakes because I was a programmer, but I've worked with umpteen programmers that are not pedantic. Rather, I think I gravitated towards programming because it's so unforgiving. I remember the lab assistant for first year chemistry telling me that they were ecstatic if they got results of 80%. Personally, I was horrified. I don't care if it works 99.999% of the time; it has to be perfect. Programming and mathematics provide the unforgiving, get-it-right-or-fail mindset that I seem to have been born with.

Evolution: A Debate by Two Muslim Thinkers

It's here.

Maysoon & Mu`awiya

Mu`awiya ibn Abu Sufyan, the first Umayyad Caliph, married Maysoon, a beautiful bedouin woman from the tribe of Kalb. After a few months of living under the strictures of city-dwelling nobility, which to her meant being confined like a domesticated animal, she composed the following lines:

لبيت تخفق الأرياح فيه----------أحب الي من قصر منيف
ولبس عباءة وتقر عيني--------- أحب اليّ من لبس الشفوف
وأكل كسيرة في كسر بيتي-------أحب الي من اكل الرغيف
وأصوات الرياح بكل فجٍ---------أحب الي من نقر الدفوف
وكلب ينبح الطراق دوني---------أحب الي من قط اليف
وبكر يتبع الاضعان صعب-------أحب الي من بعل زفوف
وخرق من بني عمي نحيف------أحب الي من علج عنوف
خشونة عيشي في البدو أشهى-----الى نفسي من العيش الطريف
فما أبغى سوى وطني بديلا------وما أبهاه من وطن شريف

A house that winds rattle in
Is more beloved to me than a lofty castle.

Wearing a `abaya while being content
Is more beloved to me than refined raiment.

Eating a small scrap of bread in a nook of my house
Is more beloved to me than eating a loaf.

The voices of winds in every gorge
ٍAre more beloved to me than the beating of drums.

A dog that barks away night visitors
Is more beloved to me than a house cat.

A difficult camel calf that follows sheep
Is more beloved to me than a swift-footed husband.

An emaciated oaf from among my cousins
Is more beloved to me than a rough lout.

The coarseness of my livelihood in open country is more desirous
To my soul than exquisite livelihood.

So I do not desire other than my homeland as a substitute
And what a magnificent, honourable homeland it be!

Upon hearing these verses, Mu`awiya divorced Maysoon, who returned to her family. It turns out that Maysoon was pregnant with Yazeed ibn Mu`awiya; she breastfed him in the desert for two years and then sent him to live with his father.