pavement rising

merry belated BOXING DAY, ewerybady.
i spent the special day driving through the saskatchewan prairie, eating fudge, throwing cousines into snowbanks, and playing boardgames with hot chocolate. what did you do?
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tomorrow’s the day of ‘arafah – remember me in hearts’prayers.

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bring your own redemption

we were talking about academic institutions in the muslim world, why so few of them are actually productive in a positive way and not stagnant, regurgitating the same mantras. we mentioned a particular center which once was driven by a western professor and researcher who then returned to amreeka, whereupon the institute itself fell apart.
babaji: [...]

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thunder on the mountain

bracken walked into class with our marked term papers, and: “you [ie. the class] don’t know how to write.” but his comments on mine almost made up for his exam: “Basit- I enjoyed reading this paper. You have found your way to an important debate in contemporary social/political theory. J. Habermas calls it the theory [...]

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possibilities

after the argyll/muslim education foundation meeting the other night, i walked up to the salrooqs as they stood talking to noor. “so i was thinking the other day, how the good God has blessed me with a friend who is concerned with my focus in life, my direction in university, my marital status, even my [...]

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a christmas letter

every year my grosstante esther has the extended family write christmas letters.
but: back to typing. this next week i will have to remember coffee isn’t food.
so: in place of a real post.
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in my secret life

three papers over five and a half days, pray it is possible. they are not too long, about six pages each.
1- is religious language factually meaningful? the logical positivist position (what i’m taking as a scientific twist on naive realism) vs. saussurean and peircean semiotics. (halfway finished)
2- trying to (roughly) map foucault’s biopower and chomsky’s [...]

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pages turning

years ago, i wrote: “and driving home sparkles from tiny flakes of ice sweeping out of air like silver whispers”
this morning again nearly minus 40 degrees. this land we live in.
if morton wins the elections tonight i will be horrified.
another wedding recently.
a discussion (“why do students of analytic philosophy end up so arrogant and idealistic?” [...]

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