Entries from September 2006 ↓

Mona Eltahawy tells a great story about sitting next to a Muslim man sporting a beard, tunic, and baggy pants on a flight to Denmark.  She herself is Muslim and on her way to a conference in Copenhagen for young Muslim leaders, but she suspects her Western clothes and uncovered head will earn scorn from [...]

On my way to the office this week I’ve been listening to NPR’s series on Muslims in America.  Today’s was particularly good, an interview with two Arabs working in Hollywood, Sayed Badreya, an actor, and Hesham Issawi, a director.
They talked about Arab stereotypes in Hollywood, but the interview also highlighted how much the image of [...]

Via 43folders I learned about a website today with tips and strategies covering a huge range of topics, from avoiding procrastination to writing under deadline to solving derivatives.  It’s kind of like CliffsNotes for personal productivity with an emphasis on study skills.  Oh, and parts of it have been translated into over 30 languages.
It looks [...]

The NY Times has a short editorial on Turkey-U.S. relations that’s worth taking a look at.  The piece basically suggests that the U.S. is making the right move by appointing a retired Air Force general and former NATO commander to help coordinate the Turkish government’s crackdown on rising Kurdish separatist violence. 
The logic is that [...]

Over the past few months I’ve mentioned a number of helpful books on productivity, writing, and procrastination.  Now you can find the very best of these books gathered together in one convenient location on my site:  the Jim Gibbon.com store.  You may have already noticed the link under “Pages” in the sidebar.
You’ll see right away [...]

My friend Andy sent me a fascinating story on John (Hamza) Walker Lindh in response to my post on conversion to Islam.  It’s a feature from the July ‘06 issue of Esquire that revisits how Lindh ended up in Afghanistan and describes his current life in a medium-security prison outside L.A.
The article gets really interesting [...]

There was an explosion in the basement of an adjacent building on Saturday night that took out all the power in our apartment complex.  No one was hurt, but there was apparently a lot of damage.  Here’s the report from the Facilities Department.
If you follow that link, you’ll see at the bottom all the things [...]