The ACLU is hosting a major event on Oct. 13, 2009, where famous individuals will read excerpts from torture reports to make it more human. Check it out.
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What Unites Us
What Unites Us. WhatUnites.Us calls on Americans to aspire to common values. The campaign brings together Americans from all walks of life to push back against anti-Muslim rhetoric and make it unacceptable for public figures of any kind, but especially elected officials, to espouse anti-Muslim hate. The campaign calls on Americans to focus on what unites us and to call out rhetoric and actions that divide us. The campaign is built around the American values of freedom, truth, fairness, justice and diversity. The site features video testimonials, blog content, campaign actions and more.
Interview on NPR on Riyaaz Qawwali
I was recently interviewed on NPR about Riyaaz Qawwali, a group out of Austin, TX. Hussein Rashid, a professor of religion at Hofstra University, says that many qawwaliartists working in South Asia today have limited themselves. He believes this American group is bringing the music back to its roots. “You know, I think there’s been so much concern about what is Islam, and what isn’t, politically speaking and artistically speaking,” Rashid says, “that there’s been a push in modern qawwali to actually sanitize it and make it very sterile — and almost rule-bound — rather than ecstatic and devotional. For me, I think…
Karen Armstrong Interview
She talks a lot about religion and politics in this particular piece. I think her history of the Sunni-Shi’ah political divide is a bit off. Arguably the first empires fighting about this were in the 11th century (Fatimids and Abbasids), but I would argue the political division goes back to the time of the Prophet. However, that doesn’t mean that they didn’t live well together. Karen Armstrong