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*rubs chin thoughtfully*

Did this guy just destroy your Madonna/whore illusion about women?

*chortle*

Never tell a bitch to drop a size

I've never heard of the original song nor am I interested to watch the MVA controversy with Miley Cyrus twerking to Robin Thicke.

But this? Is awesome.

NSFW. You have been warned.



 

Down the rabbit hole to tripping the acid fantastic

I first came across this song on Supernatural, the television show that ate my brain (not that I could spare the little grey cells, so little do I have them) in one of the most fabulous opening scene in the history of television. I love the imagery evoked by both the melody and lyric of this song; silk-wrapped menace stalking in the shadows on midnight, propelling you towards a path less travelled, much like the seduction of a pooka taking you on a midnight ride.

For the record, I have always found Alice in Wonderland (in whatever incarnation) truly creepy. Adventures are all fine and well, but seriously, the story is like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for children. Incomprehensible, fueled by mind altering substances, tripping you into dream-like experience that is quite likely to be damaging one way or another.

But all those are the reasons that make this song the perfect anthem to many urban fantasy novels. Simon R Green is a British novelist with more than two dozen novels under his belt. Mr Green first caught me with his Nightside series, a noir horror fest of a London underground parallel universe called the Nightside where it's always three o'clock in the morning. Gods and monsters abound in the Nightside, and everything is out to get you (literally).

I love the way he fleshed out this world with the Timeslips and aliens from other dimensions marching side by side with ancient evil and primordial soup fear distilled into its purest form. The protagonist, John Taylor, is a private investigator with an unusual gift, a sly tongue and a penchant for white trench coats. He tries to do the right thing, which could go horribly wrong in the Nightside. He often ropes in friends and enemies to help solve the case of the day; colourful characters like Dead Boy, Suzie Shooter, Razor Eddie, and many more. If you are a fan of noir, do give this series a shot.

Mr Green also have another series about the Drood family, chronicling the (mis)adventures of Edwin Drood AKA Shaman Bond, the man with the golden torc. The series is a nice rollicking adventure in the psychotic vein of the James Bond series, with over the top villains and crazy magical technology to add LSD to the action sequence. The series are fun to read, but re-reading value is rather low for me.

He has several other book series, but I've only come across the first book of the Ghostfinders series. Sadly, I don't find it as fun as John Taylor's investigations so I didn't bother with the rest. However, I am intrigued by the Deathstalker series, but not piqued enough to invest money for it.

All in all, if you're into urban fantasy and are looking for a new author to try, go ahead and give Mr Green a shot.

Flogging ...

... a Dead Horse? Revisiting the Question of Intellectual Decline in Muslim Societies.

I bet some who saw the headline thought that this would be a post about some kinky activities or primitive punishment exerted on criminals in days of yore. Sorry to disappoint you but that was the title of the talk I attended today at the IAIS, given by Prof. Syed Nomanul Haq, a Senior Visiting Professor at ISTAC.

Prof. Haq was a wonderfully engaging speaker who did not perpetrate the dreaded Death by Power Point by avoiding the use of multimedia altogether.

Speaking sans PowerPoint is an idiosyncrasy common among social scientists; those of the hard sciences persuasion would be appalled at the idea of crippling their delivery with a lack of figures, graphs and pictures of disemboweled laboratory animals. Nonetheless, Prof. Haq did a good job of engaging the audience with his ideas by sheer force of personality.

He exhorted the idea that intellectualism died with Al-Ghazali's pronouncement that the scientific approach is inadequate is a gross fallacy. According to Prof. Haq, Al Ghazali was actually an exponent of rationality, going so far as to say that scientific discovery trumps a hadith or scripture; that the hadith or scripture that contravenes science or maths to be interpreted allegorically. He also moaned about the lack of Muslim physicians in 11th century Persia. 

These are not the actions or thoughts of a thinker who denigrates science. Therefore he is unlikely to be responsible for Muslim intellectuals to stop sourcing new knowledge. However, Al-Ghazali may have been misinterpreted as his original writings may be inaccessible to modern readers who have to rely upon translations and interpretations of other scholars on his work.

Yes, those scholars have no ulterior motives to misinterpret him in such a way.

And yes, I'm being facetious.

Prof. Haq felt that the problems with the Muslim world could be laid at the feet of the systematic disenfranchisement due to lack of educational reform. When the society is hobbled with the inability to process, much less generate information to solve day-to-day problems, there is no wonder why many Muslim apologists are forever looking back at the so-called Islamic "Golden Age" with nostalgia. They reiterate that a civilisation that taught Galileo and Copernicus all that they know and debunking Galen's humors is a civilisation to be reckoned with.

Yup. About 800 years ago, mate. And we now have medical imaging and use quantum physics to compute dizzying array of numbers and take pictures of galaxies that died millions of years ago in space.

When you embrace theological perversion that shuts out half of the society from participating in nation building and socioeconomic progress (the burqa, the harem, the Taliban's campaign against Malala Yousefzai to name a few), then you should not wonder why the rest of the world is outpacing you. Blaming the Jews and the Illuminati can only go so far. But then again, if you reject the use of logic and rational thinking when evaluating situations and evidence, perhaps believing in an omnipresent organisation that is out to get you is not a big stretch of the imagination. 

 And you would believe this too.

The question and answer session was nice; Prof. Haq did not shy away from hard questions that challenged the views that he presented today. He countered the idea of Islamisation of knowledge: there are no secular and religious knowledge. ALL KNOWLEDGE is Islamic, so calculus, theoretical physics, biochemistry, political science etc are all 'ilm usul ad deen (normatively called usuluddin or knowledge of the way of life). 

Prof. Haq also expressed that there is no profit in discussing whether the Shiite are outpacing the Sunnis in terms of knowledge acquisition; we should accept that as Muslims, regardless of the school of thought you embrace, we should accept each other at face value. Yay to pluralism WITHIN Islam!

Sadly, I didn't quite get his response to the query regarding how the conditional denial of decline of the Islamic civilisation is a denial of the problems faced by the Muslim world. 

Basically, my take home message from the talk and discussion was that we must encourage OPPORTUNITIES TO LEARN. We should revolutionise the education system to give children an opportunity to learn everything that they could learn: from languages (beyond the national language and English) to maths, the various branches of science, as well as logic and articulation skills. We should also enrich our culture to encourage life long learning, not limiting ourselves because of age and how the new knowledge is not relevant to our work.

We must stop encouraging one field of knowledge at the expense of another. This is seen at the university level where many humanities departments are getting less funding in order to expand the technical and engineering laboratories. Soft and hard sciences have their place in this world and must be encouraged to grow and prosper.

It is only with educational opportunities that we can open minds to ideas that bring hearts to righteousness in order to fulfill our roles as the vicegerent of this Earth. However, this does not mean that you should stuff your kids' extra classes to the gills, but rather inculcate a love of learning so that they will create opportunities to learn beyond merely what is taught in school.

At least, you should hope to do so.

Technological marvels

Have a great time the rest of the week, y'all.

Carry on and vomit acid

You think that humans are the pinnacle of the evolution?

Think again.

The vulture has cast iron stomach; no festivities over-eating will lay it low like it did us. We only see acid barfs in Hollywood movies, the vulture lives the reality. We cringe at pooping in our pants; the vultures elevate it to a sophisticated cooling system-cum-sanitation action.

So how awesome are vultures?

Very awesome.

Sadly, their numbers are dwindling, thanks to human activities (OMG, my favourite painkiller is lethal to them!) that damage their eggs, kill them directly and indirectly and other stuff. Zoroastrians and Buddhists practicing sky burials need vultures. Heck, the ecosystem need vultures; they clean up road kills, diseased animals and thus help recycle nutrients effectively.

So the next time you are tempted to say, "Ew!" and wrinkle your nose in disgust at something nature designed that aren't furry and cute, bear in mind that the creature could be more useful to the environment than you could ever be in your entire gas-guzzling, resource-over-exploiting existence.

The evolution ...

... of physics.

Why couldn't I have seen this when I actually had to sit for the exam?



*fumes*

Self pimpage

I shamelessly share my latest posts on Cowbird.

On reading and not just reciting.

On fish crackers and sibling disbelief.

Aye, I'm a comment whore. Feed my habit, please?

*bats eyelashes*

The perils of modern life

I live in a country where hundreds and even thousands of people die (or got maimed) every year from road accidents. Most are motorcyclists, but a good bit are also pedestrians, drivers, and passengers in public vehicles. If you want the figures, go ahead and Google it. It's very depressing.

The numbers say that most of the fatal traffic accidents are caused by human error. This does not mean the non-fatal ones are not caused by human error. It's just that no one died so no one really cared about the causes of the accident, except for the insurance adjusters. Human error usually means the operator of the vehicle had catastrophic misjudgment(s). For example, overtaking dangerously, driving on the emergency lane and hitting a stationary vehicle, taking perilous curves at unsuitable speeds, inadequate vehicle maintenance making it prone for accidents,  the list goes on. One of the major factors is loss of attention while driving, which could be because the guy slept at 4 am watching a footie match and fell into microsleep behind the wheel, or was using the mobile phone, or trying to grab the mobile phone that fell below the seat and so on.

The mobile phone is one of the most amazing addition to the modern life. It has revolutionised how we communicate, the speed at which information (truth and lies) spread, and the number of people who could get connected. The mobile phone had fueled the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movement. The mobile phone has helped expose uncomfortable truth about schoolroom bullying, indifferent citizens, rape in real time and much, much more.

This hyper connectivity feeds the pleasure centre in our brain, making us feel good when we get our fix, nail-bitingly anxious when we can't get a hit. Our mobile phones are so versatile: it is our umbilical cord to those we love (or want to talk to), entertainment centre, camera, computer and I am sure you can come up with more uses for your mobile phone. It's no wonder that we love it, have a relationship with it, and mourn when it is out of date (3 months from the date of purchase) and are ecstatic when we get the latest gadget with all the bells and whistles.

Like many, I will bet that when you leave your house, apart from your keys and wallet, you make sure that you have your mobile phone with you, right? Because it has gone beyond a luxury into a necessity of our modern life. We check our mobile assiduously while we are on dates, watching movies, at concerts/funerals/weddings/graduation, eating with our family and even while we are in the loo. We never stopped fondling our mobile phones even while we drive, no matter how our forebrain tells us that it is a dangerous and stupid thing to be doing.

I know it's a bit lengthy for a public service announcement. Nonetheless, it's still gripping and visceral, created by a film-maker well known for making arty films. I swiped the video from here.

That said, I don't know if it will stop me from texting/Whatsapping/e-mailing/playing Word Feud while driving.

Because accidents only happen to other people, right?

Right?

In the mood for ...

... steampunk!