Celebrating Women Through Islamic Caligraphy

Oh, good! Our Celebrating Women Through Islamic Caligraphy calendar arrived!

If we’re being precise about it, we never technically ordered a Celebrating Women Through Islamic Caligraphy calendar, but here one is anyway, courtesy of a kindly charity. This will help us remember all the important Islamic dates in 2013. Sorry, I mean 1434-1435.

 

Our New Calendar?

There’s the beginning of Safar and of Rabi’ al-awwal… “Columbus Day /  Day of Arafat”… the birth of Jesus…

Wait, go back to that last one. Christmas? And Christmas Eve? Is it possible that Christmas has become some kind of secular holiday, available to people of all faiths? Unthinkable!

I’m also a little confused about the quote on the cover. The calendar is titled Celebrating Women Through Islamic Caligraphy, so each page features an inspirational quote about women. For example, March features this quote: “The best of Life’s enjoyment is when one is blessed with a righteous wife.” And a righteous wife I have!

But the cover’s quotation reads “اتقوا الله في النساء” which they’ve translated as “Fear Allah in all dealings with women.” The “all dealings” translation seems a little loose from what I’ve read. But more importantly, that quote comes from a passage of Sahih Muslim #2803 that’s historically been used to justify beating women. One translation of the full passage reads (emphasis mine):

Fear Allah concerning women! Verily you have taken them on the security of Allah, and intercourse with them has been made lawful unto you by words of Allah. You too have right over them, and that they should not allow anyone to sit on your bed whom you do not like. But if they do that, you can chastise them but not severely. Their rights upon you are that you should provide them with food and clothing in a fitting manner.

But in other sources, “chastise” has been translated more harshly to various synonyms of “hit” or “beat”.

I certainly don’t mean to imply that the calendar’s authors intended to convey that message — nor, for that matter, does it seem Imam Muslim did. But the choice still strikes me as peculiar for the cover of a calendar specifically celebrating women.

The moral here, if there is one at all, is to avoid sending these calendars to non-believers with a Google account and a couple hours to spend on research. In related news, I imagine I can expect Google’s advertising for me to be a little off-target for a while.

Today’s Athletes

The New York Times looked at every athlete who’s won an Olympic medal in the 100-meter sprint since 1896, drew them all on the same track, and studied the wonderful history of sprinting. You can see just how much faster athletes are today than even a few years ago — and how often records are broken. You’ll leave for new respect for today’s athletes, and a profound sense that you will never compete anywhere near that level.

The Times also took on the 100-meter freestyle and the long jump, with each yielding a different and fascinating view of athletic history.

Voter Report Card 2

Literally the day after I got my first Voter Report Card from MoveOn.org, I got another one from Colorado Fair Share.

Voter Report Card

Voter Report Card

Amazingly, I’ve now voted in only one of the last four general elections (and if we assume this still counts only my current address, that’s correct) — but now that’s better than the average for my neighborhood. Clearly, public voting records are just made up on the spot.

Voter Report Card

MoveOn.org has sent me a “Voter Report Card” — and apparently I’m voting at a “Below average” level.

Voter Report Card

Voter Report Card

Of course, I actually voted in all five of the last five elections (plus all five primaries) — and all the elections before that too. But this is “for your current address only”, so my failure is really a data analysis error. But what’s truly confusing is that I’ve only voted once at this address. So when they say I’ve voted in two elections, what exactly are they counting?

Happy or Unhappy?

The City of Longmont sent a survey to 3,000 random residents (including us) with five pages of questions on a wide range of city services. How satisfied are you with weekly trash pick up? Is graffiti a major problem? Weeds? Homelessness? How often do you attend City Council meetings?

And then, out of nowhere, question 20:

Overall, how happy or unhappy are you with your life?

Very happy! Thank you for asking! But some number of people will answer “Very Unhappy” and what I want to know is: will that lessen the value of the rest of their answers? “Well, sure, this guy hates the quality of our tap water, but he also hates his life overall, so let’s just shred his whole survey.”

Boyfriends and Girlfriends

The students who helped raise the most money for Sophie’s school got a limo ride to a pizza lunch party with the principal today. My favorite part of the conversation in the limo went like this:

3rd Grader: I have a girlfriend, and I’m marrying her on Halloween.
1st Grader: I can’t think about that right now.
Kindergtartner: I have a boyfriend and a girlfriend.

Touché.

Hour Physics

Surely the exact opposite of Minute Physics is the Richard Feynman’s hours-long (and entirely engaging) talks given for the Messenger Lectures at Cornell. Here’s the first hour:

The whole series isn’t available from a single source, but it all seems to be available (following YouTube’s “related videos”, or just searching for “The Character of Physical Law”).

Possibly my favorite thing anybody’s ever said comes in the seventh part, Seeking New Laws:

Now I’m going to discuss how we would look for a new law. In general, we look for a new law by the following process:

First, we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what (if this law that we guessed is right) it would imply. Then we compare the computation results to nature — or we say compare to experiment or experience.

If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong.

In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make a difference how beautiful your guess is, how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.

He goes on to talk about how once we had confidence in the law of gravitation we were able to derive new laws (and calculate for the first time the speed of light), and in that way describes how each new discovery in science leads to exponentially more new discoveries in turn. Another gem: “We’re trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible because only in that way do we find progress.”

The Treble Makers

I’ve always been particularly drawn to excellent student performances, like this one from The Treble Makers (later called Kaleidoscope):

When expectations for a student concert necessarily start lower than for a professional performer, it’s all the more impressive to see a group so entirely excel. I also like Mr. Sandman by the same quartet. I sang in my high school’s choir, and I’m absolutely certain I never attained anywhere near this level of musicality.

Minute Physics

YouTube not only brings us pirated music and the stream of consciousness narratives of teenagers around the world; it also brings us MinutePhysics!

Each video tackles a big Physics topic in just a few minutes using drawings, basic animations, and occasionally more elaborate multimedia. Here’s one of my favorites: “Why the solar system can exist” (i.e., why the planets don’t simply crash into the sun:

I also particularly like Why is it dark at night? — the answer to that simple question gets intensely elaborate over the course of three minutes.

The only trouble is that the videos are so short you really can’t watch just one. As with a good bag of potato chips, you’ll find yourself saying “just one more…” for a good hour.