August 2009 Archives

Back in February, President Obama issued a national call to service to help mobilize ordinary citizens to come together and engage in civic projects in service of their fellow citizens and the nation. The focal point for this self-driven community activism and volunteerism is the new government website, Serve.gov, which has labeled the campaign "United We Serve." One aspect of this is to reclaim September 11th as a positive message of American spirit rather than defeat:

President Barack Obama is asking Americans to volunteer on Sept. 11, making this year's anniversary of the terror attacks the first National Day of Service and Remembrance, organizers announced Thursday.

"Our ultimate goal is to leave a positive legacy that honors the victims and those who rose in service," said David Paine, the president of MyGoodDeed, one of the organizations responsible for the event.

"We hope to rekindle the spirit of unity and compassion that followed the terrorist attacks," he told a news conference near the site of the World Trade Center.

The idea of establishing 9/11 as a National Day of Service was first conceived in 2001 by the founders of MyGoodDeed, a nonprofit started by friends and relatives of 9/11 victims. They are working with ServiceNation, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and New York Cares.

In April, Obama authorized the establishment of 9/11 as a National Day of Service when he signed into law the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act.

This campaign of service is an opportunity for muslim Americans in particular, to be part of this nationwide movement but also to move past our own tangled emotional relationship with 9-11. Given that 9-11 occurs during Ramadan for a few years, it is precisely during this time of inwards reflection and resolve that we can step forward and reject 9-11 as an anniversary of fear and suspicion, but instead see it as an opportunity for healing and coming together.

As the Qur'an says, muslims may honor God by serving humanity. Thus, community service becomes not just an act of civic duty and pride, but also an act of piety in and of itself. What better way than to refute the twisted ideology that gave rise to 9-11 than to embrace our own communities and fellow citizens, to make America even stronger, and do so with the blessing of Islam?

Here are just a few of the United We Serve projects at Serve.gov being spearheaded by muslim-Americans:

Islamic Relief's Day of Dignity

the LIFE project

MSA's Project Downtown

...in that it is being hijacked by extremists who are not representative of the mainstream, but who inexplicably seem to be in control of the PR department.

For better or worse - this is what the face of conservatism today looks like:

The evident self-refuting nature of this does conservatism a grave injustice. I will not accept it, but the majority of Americans who see this certainly will. Without both conservatism and liberalism, as healthy and honest political ideologies in balance and opposition, this nation is doomed. As Bill Clinton once said,

"America has two great dominant strands of political thought - conservatism, which, at its very best, draws lines that should not be crossed; and progressivism, which, at its very best, breaks down barriers that should never have been erected."

I'm a liberal but i grieve for what is happening to conservatism in the Obama era - an entirely self-inflicted wound.

(via Rod, who has been chronicling the decline of Conservatism for some time now)

This is an interesting development - Yahoo has bought the Arabic-language portal Maktoob.com:

The global internet giant said on Tuesday it has entered into a definitive agreement with Jordan-based Maktoob Group to acquire Maktoob.com for an undisclosed fee. Maktoob Business is a part of Maktoob.com.

[..] The acquisition will allow Yahoo! to offer Arabic-language content for the first time as well as Arabic versions of its products and services, such as instant messaging and email.

[...] Maktoob.com, founded in 2000, is among the top 10 internet sites in almost all Arabic-speaking countries, according to U.S.-based research firm Alexa.

"With the combination of the Yahoo and the Maktoob brands … and the breadth of content and services that we have, we expect to be one of the strongest players in the region," Keith Nilsson, Senior Vice President, Emerging Markets, Yahoo!, told Maktoob Business.

[...] Internet penetration across the Middle East stands at around 23.3 percent, compared to more than 70 percent in the UK and U.S., according to InternetWorldStats.com.

In Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country, internet penetration stands at just 12.9 percent, while in the oil-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia penetration is only 22.7 percent.

Ahmed Nassef, General Manager, Maktoob.com, said: "In most part of the Arab world we are just at the start of internet penetration.
"Yahoo! Maktoob will create the products to bring the Arab world online, and then offer Middle East businesses the opportunity to talk to that audience."
For Maktoob.com the takeover will likely bring significant investment and access to Yahoo !technology with which to optimise its current offering.

The deal will also boost the English-language side of Maktoob.com as Yahoo! is already the number two website in many Arab countries without Arabic support or a regionally-focused content.

There's a related article about why this deal is so important, and also lambasting the Arab media for utterly failing to recognize or report on this landmark deal. In a number of ways, this deal highlights the disconnect between Arab leaders and the next generation:

It finally puts us Arabs on the global Internet map. It will get people to pay attention to this region's knowledge-based industry, where there is an impressive number of technology entrepreneurs.

It is the ultimate success story in a region long used to failure. For our younger generations, it is a wonderful example of how a dream can turn into a brilliant achievement through a combination of boundless creativity and down-to-earth business sense.

For our leaders, it is hopefully a painful reminder of the distance between their priorities and the ambitions of an increasingly wired younger generation (16.5 million of whom are unique visitors of Maktoob's) eager to move away from a state-driven, oil-dominated future.

For our wealthy Arab investors, it is a wakeup call that true value lies in our youth rather than in real estate, and that talent is closer to home than they could have ever imagined.

For the Arab world, it is proof that money may count for something but, in the final analysis, an education, smarts and determination count for much more, because the two entrepreneurial gentlemen who made Maktoob started out in Jordan - their home and, it just so happens, one of our area's more resource-poor countries - and, even when their company reached way beyond it, never left.

In all of this, I find reason for genuine optimism - the Internet is indeed the liberalizing, democratic force that we have believed it to be, and the very fact that Maktoob's success is incomprehensible to the Arab elite suggests that the next generation of leaders is poised to remake their society when it is their turn.

For more information, see coverage of the Yahoo-Maktoob deal from Techcrunch. Also, Yahoo has confirmed the deal on their own blog.

The first week of Ramadan is often the hardest, posing the greatest challenge (both mental and physical) of integrating Ramadan into our lives. While it would be easy to claim that we simply "turn on Ramadan" like a light switch, in reality like anything else there is an initial period of borderline chaos while we adapt. The decreased energy during the day from fasting hits us hardest this first week, though after a few days we are mostly acclimated. More challenging is making the right adjustments to our routines - especially sleep, which in our modern hectic lifestyles is often the first thing we sacrifice. But the importance of getting enough sleep in Ramadan is paramount, both in terms of going to bed early to help offset the earlier waking time, and also trying to find time for an afternoon nap or downtime to recharge for the evening. In fact sleep tends to be my greatest challenge, far more than food, in Ramadan - especially since I am forced to go without my habitual caffeine addiction. Most of the year, we don't get enough sleep as it is, and use Starbucks as a crutch to get by; during Ramadan we are required to walk further and throw the crutch away. And yet, we succeed. The real question is, why can't we maintain that beyond Ramadan? There's really no excuse for perpetuating the good sleep habits, and reduced caffeine intake, beyond the holy month.

Starbucks isn't helping. The Pumpkin Spice latte comes out on September 1st.

It is sad news indeed, if not entirely unexpected, to hear of Senator Ted Kennedy's passing. The man was a titan, a political legend, whose inspiration as a classical liberal champion was the role model for an entire generation of politicians and citizen activists alike. He dedicated himself to the cause of the poor, underpriveleged, and the weak, and thus earned the veomous hatred of conservatives who delighted in pointing out his personal tragedies. These critics never managed to unseat him or derail his legislative success - it is worth noting that one of his greatest achievements was the creation of Medicare part D - during the Republican era of President Bush, no less.

The clues to Kennedy's imminent passing were clear; Senator Kennedy could not even attend his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver's funeral just two weeks ago, and last week made an urgent appeal to the Massachusetts legislature to change the law permitting the Governor to appoint a successor to his seat, rather than wait five months for a special election in January. This plea was refused by the legislature, for good reason - the governor of MA actually did have the power to appoint a successor to a vacant Senate seat, but that power was removed by the Democratic-controlled legislature in 2004. The reason was blatantly political, as it was Senator Kerry who was poised to vacate the seat if he'd won the election, but with Republican Mitt Romney as governor at the time, it would have been a Republican appointed to fill the seat in the interim.

This decision to play politics in 2004 has now come round to hurt the liberal ambition of health care reform today in 2009, as with Senator Kennedy's passing, the Democrats have lost a key vote in the likely contentious final showdown over the issues. The Senate in particular is the main bottleneck, where the Democrats inexplicably remain intent on "bipartisanship" while the Republicans blatantly state that there's no way to satisfy them. The Senate is where the battle for health reform will be fought and Senator Kennedy's absence will be sorely missed, not just by the Democrats for their political gain but also by the 70 million people who lack insurance coverage or who are underinsured. For their sake, the fight for insurance reform must not have been in vain - but without Senator Kennedy, it's a lot tougher a hill to climb.

Related: CBS has some excerpts of famous speeches by Senator Kennedy, and the Washington Post has video of his most famous speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1980. I think that this passage from his own eulogy of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, says it best however:

"Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world."

Rest in peace, Senator Kennedy. We'll get it done.