Review: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

Reporter Katherine Boo travels to Annawadi, a slum in Mumbai, and chronicles the lives of some of its residents. Is it more poverty porn? Would you not be better off reading Aravind Adiga's collection of stores entitled Between the Assassinations? I mean, poverty is poverty is poverty. And let's face it: We don't like seeing, hearing or talking about it. We want our soap operas to feature corporate intrigue and disputes over vast properties, like Dallas or Dynasty, not schmucks needing payday loans to keep the water on and pay rent. We want our superheroes to be self-funded billionaires like Bruce Wayne (Batman) and Charles Frances Xavier (Professor X). We don't even hear about poverty from our news outlets.

Center for Islam and Religious Freedom Poetry and Art Contests, Deadline July 10

Love Art and poetry? This very cool new nonprofit by altM EIC, Asma Uddin, has two summer contests with great prizes! Details at: http://www.IslamAndRF.org

A photo posted by altmuslimah (@altmuslimah) on Jun 23, 2016 at 10:07am PDT

The Center for Islam and Religious Freedom has a website with more information.

To Read: God, Nature, and the Cause: Essays on Islam and Science by Basil AlTaie

 The publisher is Kalam Research and Media.

Radio Islam Show Features Steve Downs, Coleen Rowley & Marcy Wheeler to Discuss War on Terror & Orlando Shooting

Here are the show notes:

In this Radio Islam segment we'll explore what FBI entrapment cases entail and loop it back to the Orlando shooting. See more at: www.radioislam.com/node/5168 Host: Gerald Hankerson Guest: Steve Downs, Founding Member of Project SALAM Guest: Coleen Rowley, Former FBI Agent Guest: Marcy Wheeler, Blogger/Journalist on the Empty Wheel

Mohammad Fadel "The Challenge of ISIS to Sunni Islam"

University of Toronto Law Professor Mohammad Fadel gave the Third Annual Sharjah Chair in Global Islam Lecture on September 29, 2015. You can follow him on Twitter and read some of his papers.



Parts of his talk focusing on the dismal political conditions in predominantly-Arab countries leading to the heresies of ISIS reminded me of Umberto Eco's novel In the Name of the Rose.