Thoughts Inspired by Peter Wohlleben's "The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate"

Peter Wohlleben's The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate (translated by Jane Billinghurst) makes me want to tell parents worried about their child's social and career prospects, "It's OK. Let beyta بیٹا be a forester."

Wohlleben promotes biophilia, a love and respect for other living inhabitants of our planet. He writes about forests, most specifically trees, in anthropocentric terms to engender those emotions in the reader. I am not qualified to assess the accuracy of his account or his criticisms of the forestry industry and foresting practices. I am  predisposed to accept Wohlleben's call to restrict human activity in large swaths of land for 500 years to allow old forests to reestablish themselves for a number of reasons: my suspicion of technological solutions to our social & ecological problems, the urgency of slowing down biodiversity loss and my fondness for hiking. 

In this blog entry, however, I am more concerned with two items: the implications of Wohlleben's assertions for proposals to ward off ecological change which would endanger human civilization and how texts from the Quran portray non-humans.

Global bodies are examining how aforestation and reducing deforestation may reduce greenhouse gas effects. Before reading Wohlleben's book, I imagined a Maoist regime compelling all the people who had previously worked in finance to report each morning to the reforestation detail, where a truck carrying trees to be transplanted & workers would go to that day's designated tree-planting zone. Now, I believe it's not as simple as planting rows of baby trees. Forests are more complicated than that.

E.O. Wilson believes one-half of the land surface of the planet must be set aside as a nature reserve. This seems more in line with Wohlleben's thinking, but implementing this seems even less possible than having a centralized planning commission retool mortgage brokers into arboreal workers.

Monotheistic religions have been portrayed as inherently hostile to non-human life. Discussing this assertion is beyond me, but, as I was reading The Hidden Life of Trees, I thought of these passages from the Quran:

وَمَا مِن دَابَّةٍ فِي الْأَرْضِ وَلَا طَائِرٍ يَطِيرُ بِجَنَاحَيْهِ إِلَّا أُمَمٌ أَمْثَالُكُم ۚ مَّا فَرَّطْنَا فِي الْكِتَابِ مِن شَيْءٍ ۚ ثُمَّ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِمْ يُحْشَرُونَ

There is not an animal (that lives) on the earth, nor a being that flies on its wings, but (forms part of) communities like you. Nothing have we omitted from the Book, and they (all) shall be gathered to their Lord in the end. (6:38)

سَبِّحِ اسْمَ رَبِّكَ الْأَعْلَى الَّذِي خَلَقَ فَسَوَّىٰ وَالَّذِي قَدَّرَ فَهَدَىٰ

Glorify the name of thy Guardian-Lord Most High

Who hath created, and further, given order and proportion;

Who hath ordained laws. And granted guidance; (87:1-3)

قَالَ فَمَن رَّبُّكُمَا يَا مُوسَىٰ  قَالَ رَبُّنَا الَّذِي أَعْطَىٰ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ خَلْقَهُ ثُمَّ هَدَىٰ

(Pharaoh) said: "Who, then, O Moses, is the Lord of you two?"

He said: "Our Lord is He Who gave to each (created) thing its form and nature, and further, gave (it) guidance." (20:49-50)

إِنَّا عَرَضْنَا الْأَمَانَةَ عَلَى السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَالْجِبَالِ فَأَبَيْنَ أَن يَحْمِلْنَهَا وَأَشْفَقْنَ مِنْهَا وَحَمَلَهَا الْإِنسَانُ ۖ إِنَّهُ كَانَ ظَلُومًا جَهُولًا

We did indeed offer the Trust to the Heavens and the Earth and the Mountains; but they refused to undertake it, being afraid thereof: but man undertook it;- He was indeed unjust and foolish;- (33:72)

So if a child spends an inordinate amount of time examining flowers or ants and drawing pictures of birds and fish, don't worry if they'll fit in. Just make sure they get to pursue those interests and learn all they can about those creatures. They may figure out a way to keep this crazy bunch of tool-using, space-faring primates from killing themselves.

Review: "There Goes the Neighborhood: How Communities Overcome Prejudice and Meet the Challenge of American Immigration" by Ali Noorani

 

Ali Noorani is the President and Director of National Immigration Forum. He began writing There Goes the Neighborhood: How Communities Overcome Prejudice and Meet the Challenge of American Immigration in 2010, after Congress failed to pass The Dream Act, despite the Democratic Party majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Those advocating human rights for migrants were bitterly disappointed that, despite decades of advocacy and organizing, legislation which would have provided the most meager of relief for some undocumented immigrants failed. 

Ali Noorani identifies that cultural advocacy was the missing ingredient: "When Americans were looking for an answer to their questions of cultural identity, we gave them a political answer instead." [p. 30]

Documentary: The Problem with Apu by Hari Kondabolu

I've liked Hari Kondabolu since seeing a YouTube clip (profanity warning) of why he doesn't use an accent in his comedy acts. When Roku and HBO Max finally resolved their differences, the first movie I watched was his 2017 documentary The Problem with Apu. The documentary is an excellent walk-through about the importance of representation in popular culture, a topic which I've covered in this blog's entries on TV shows, movies and documentaries. There were several points the movie made which stand out for me.

The writers on The Simpsons never considered the impact the character Apu had on actual people. When Hari was interviewing a former producer who pointed out that the show's portrayal of the evil oligarch Mr. Burns was stereotypical and Hari pointed out that one couldn't compare the positions of oligarchs and convenience store operators in society, the producer said that the only consideration in the writers' room was whether dialog was funny. Hari then points out that the only reason Apu and his accent are funny is because society is racist.

Film: "Zahra and the Oil Man" by Yucef Mayes

Updated October 26, 2025 - The film is now available on YouTube!

My local NBC affiliate substituted "African American Short Films" by BamadiTV for the repeatedly postponed Baltimore Ravens versus Pittsburgh Steelers football game. Among the features was the short film Zahra and the Oil Man, directed by Yucef Mayes.

It's refreshing to see a depiction of USA Muslims without violence and with loving family relationships. Yet the film has a twist which I didn't see coming and a satisfying resolution, so I can recommend it for more than just its representational value.

The film is available for streaming from Alchemiya & Kweli TV.

The film has a Facebook Page. Here's the IMDB entry.

You can subscribe to be notified if a BamadiTV program airs in your locale.

Recommendation: India in the West: South Asians in America by Ronald Takaki

 

I remember attending an Asian Students Association meeting at the University of Virginia to hear from the guest lecturer Ronald Takaki, whom I had known about because of his book condemning the United States's use of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The students' excitement was as if a diety had entered the room, and it was really the first time I remember considering ethnicity and identity to be important. Professor Takaki was a leading figure in the movement for multiculturalism in education. India in the West: South Asians in America was published in 1995 as part of a series of books designed for young adult readers. It is adapted and reprinted from his 1989 classic Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans.

Review: "Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism" by Ozzie Zehner

I watched the documentary Planet of the Humans and acquired Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism, whose author, Ozzie Zehner, was a producer.

The book has three sections. The first debunks the idea of clean energy production. This is especially difficult to read, because I had never entertained serious doubts that humanity could and should continue to expand its energy production as long as it used "clean" & "renewable" energy such as solar, wind, tidal and (one day!) nuclear fusion. I'm an avid consumer of science fiction and futurism, and most of these cultural products assume that humanity has solved its environmental limits while maintaining an ever-increasing standard of living.

A few lines from Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth by Adam Frank explains why physicists believe this is theoretically impossible, but Ozzie Zehner's documentary and book brought this point home to me.

Recommendation: "Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction" by Maia Szalavitz

I first heard of Maia Szalavitz from the Citations Needed Podcast episode 99, The Cruel, Voyeuristic Quackery of Rehab TV Shows. Her book Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction basically contradicts everything I'd ever thought I knew about addiction to mind-altering substances before involvement with supporters of recreational and medicinal cannabis legalization and decriminalization, who opened my eyes to the compound hypocrisies and harms of prohibition and incarceration.

What Do Societies With Just Immigration Polices Look Like? Thoughts After Reading Suketu Mehta's "This Land is Our Land"

If you are a thoughtful, decent human being at this time, you should be bobbing between waves of anger and panic, on the verge of drowning in a sea of insanity. Now, imagine sitting down to write a book. Likely, by the second or third page, your prose would resemble that of the author character, played by Jack Nicholson, in the 1980 horror movie The Shining. Suketu Mehta, through writing skill and knowledge, transformed these righteous emotions into This Land is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto.

This book is being written in sorrow and rage -- as well as hope. I am angry: about the staggering global hypocrisy of the rich nations, having robbed the poor ones of their future, now arguing against a reverse movement of peoples -- not to invade and conquer and steal, but to work. Angry at the ecological devastation that has been visited upon the planet by the West, and which now demands that the poor nations stop emitting carbon dioxide. Angry at the depiction of people like my family and the other families that have continued in my family's path, because the had no other choice, as freeloaders, drug dealers, and rapists. I'm tired of apologizing for moving. These walls, these borders, between the peoples of the earth: they are of recent vintage, and they are flimsy. [pp. 8-9]

Quotes from Edwidge Danticat's "Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work"

I've gathered some quotes from Edwidge Danticat's collection of essays entitled Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work.

Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. This is what I’ve always thought it meant to be a writer. Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them. p. 10

Review: "Into the Beautiful North" by Luis Alberto Urrea

Luis Alberto Urrea's 2009 novel Into the Beautiful North is a comedy against the background of the cruel forces which drive rural Mexicans to migrate to the United States despite the risks they face on the journey, the hostility they encounter, the dangers government immigration enforcement officers pose and the relatively modest rewards the migrants obtain in exchange for enduring these risks as well as the long, hard hours they work and the bitter loneliness of exile.

The story itself is a combination of the movies The Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven and Homer’s The Odyssey. The first part of the novel introduces us to the protagonist Nayeli, a high school graduate from the fictional fishing town of Tres Camarones in Sinaloa (or maybe Nayarit, nobody knows) Province in Mexico. And while Tres Camarones had resisted most forms of modernization, it became subject to forces beyond the control of its residents:

And then, the peso dropped in value. Suddenly, there was no work. All the shrimp were shipped north, tortillas became too expensive to eat, and people started to go hungry. We told you change was bad, the old timers croaked. Nobody had heard of the term immigration. Migration, to them, was when the tuna and the whales cruised up the coast, or when Guacamaya parrots flew up from the south. So the men started to go to el norte. … The modern era had somehow passed Tres Camarones by, but this new storm had found a way to siphon its men away, out of their beds and into the next century, into a land far away. P. 4

Review: The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism by Katherine Stewart

Katherine Stewart, author of The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on American's Children, which I reviewed earlier, explores how Christian Nationalists have gained influence & power in various areas of life in the United States and elsewhere since the mid-1970s. As such The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism goes beyond Good News Club to place this threat to liberal democracy in a broader historical context and therefore should rise to a high priority in your "to-read" list.


A book with similar themes is Kevin Kruse's One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America.

While there is important information in this book, I disagree with the author's exhortation in epilogue to vote harder. While voting is a tool, the USA's and the world's veering towards fascism isn't going to stop because liberals win an election here or there.

Review: The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco by Marilyn Chase

Marilyn Chase's The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco is an easy-to-read, non-technical history of public health authorities' efforts to contain an outbreak of bubonic plague in San Francisco in the first decade of the 20th century C.E. Reading it during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, brings to mind the adage that "History doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme," as Ms. Chase noted regarding a May 19, 2020 column she wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle.

The most obvious parallel is the reluctance of business elite and their political lackeys to take public health concerns seriously for fear of a reduction in profits. For years, San Francisco oligarchs used their influence with city and state officials and media to obstruct the work of public health officials. Only the threat of losing authorization to host a large United States naval fleet persuaded these authorities to address the threat of bubonic plague with the seriousness and resources public health officials had long sought.

Free Imam Jamil al-Amin - Panelists Discuss Prospects for Release - Via The Dope Muslim Woman Podcast

I urge you to sign a petition calling for a retrial. Listen to a message from his son Kairi Al-Amin.

Favorite Quotes: "The Conference of the Birds" by Farid Attar

Image of folio from Metropolitan
Museum of Art

Afkham Darbandi & Dick Davis translated from Persian into English Farid Attar's Mantiq al-Tayr (منطق الطير). The title they chose is The Conference of the Birds. The National Endowment for the Humanities included it in its Muslim Journeys Bookshelf.

There are several translations, and the copy I read included a prologue and an epilogue, which is a revised edition of the first Darbandi & Davis published translation. The ISBN is 9780140444346, and the length is 278 pages. I thought the prologue & epilogue were valuable.

To call Darbandi & Davis translators is quite a misnomer. Their rhyming couplets are so much more than translating.

I also read a picture book version by Rabiah/Alexis York Lumbard, which I hope to write a separate blog entry about.

Review: We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders by Linda Sarsour

Author Ausma Zehanat Khan reviewed Linda Sarsour's memoir We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders in The Washington Post, April 3, 2020.

Sitting in a cafe reading Linda Sarsour’s memoir, We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders, I was afraid to expose the book’s cover, which shows the author in a hijab. As a Muslim woman living in the United States, I am well-acquainted with the different ways American Muslims minimize themselves in public. And for that reason I am all the more heartened by Sarsour’s fearlessness. -- read more -

I have not read the book.

Interview with Rabiah York Lumbard, Author of "No True Believers"

Alexis York Lumbard aka Rabiah York Lumbard agreed to Muslim Media Review's request for an interview about her first novel, No True Believers. You can see all of her works and contact her through her website.

The Young Adult (YA) Genre

Given that most authors who write YA aren’t themselves young adults, what are successful YA authors doing to connect with young readers?

They dig deep inside themselves and remember what it was like to be a teen. They also listen to their teen readers. Being a listener is critical in any form of art.

What separates YA novels & short stories from “adult” literature? Is it language level? Is it that the protagonist(s) must be young adults? For example, why isn’t Crime and Punishment a YA novel?

Author Intisar Khanani, Live on Instagram, Tue, March 24, 8 pm EDT

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With the cancellation of Thorn's book launch party, I've decided to do an Instagram livestream tomorrow (Tuesday) evening to celebrate the release! Come join me for a short reading from Thorn (about ten minutes) followed by a Q&A. This is the first time I've tried Instagram Live. Come join me - I have NO CLUE what I'm doing and don't want to be alone. 🙃I'm pretty sure it will be a good laugh, and I'll definitely pull together a giveaway! Also, I'm not sure yet how well I'll be able to check the question feed in real time, so tell me your questions below (please?) and 🎉JOIN ME 🎉 tomorrow at 8 PM EST 😉💙 #newrelease #thornnovel #bookbirthday #goosegirl #fairytale #youngadultbooks #youngadultfantasy #fantasybooks #harperteen #epicreads #diversebooks #yalit #hotkeybooks #instagramlive

A post shared by Intisar Khanani (@booksbyintisar) on Mar 23, 2020 at 8:21am PDT

Review: How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood by Peter Moskowitz

I attended a trade show in New Orleans or Baton Rouge a year or two after Katrina. There's plenty of down time at trade shows when I would exchange small talk with the people manning neighboring booths. One person shocked me by telling me that the flooding had the silver lining of cleaning out the city. I didn't understand at the time that what he meant was that it would facilitate capitalists' exploitation of the space previously occupied by displaced black residents of the city, whom he and policy makers at all levels viewed as expendable at best and liabilities at worst.

Peter Moskowitz's book How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood wants people to understand the following:

• Gentrification isn't an inevitable or natural process. Students of capitalism have long ago noted why, if unchecked, it would occur, but human societies don't have to choose to follow capital's dictates.
• In the United States, racist policies have ensured that the negative impacts of housing crises fall on black and brown people.
• Policy makers at the federal, state and municipal levels have adopted gentrification & suburbanization as vehicles for economic growth and have subsidized these processes.

Film: Brotherhood by Meryam Joobeur

Special message from Meryam Joobeur, the first ever Tunisian female filmmaker to be nominated for an #Oscar for her short film BROTHERHOOD, supported by our grants programme. We wish her all the best at the Academy Awards which will be held Monday Feb 10 early morning Doha time. pic.twitter.com/e4rDDqW9Pv

— Doha Film Institute (@DohaFilm) February 6, 2020

Brotherhood | Film from Midi La Nuit on Vimeo.

Review: How to Read Islamic Calligraphy by Maryam D. Ekhtiar

Emily Neumeier reviewed How to Read Islamic Calligraphy by Maryam D. Ekhtiar in the January 22, 2020 Los Angeles Review of Books. Professor Maryam Ekhtiar works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"Ekhtiar’s volume is part of a wider How to Read series of handbooks produced by different departments at the Met, designed to equip readers with the essential tools and background to appreciate an entire class of materials ranging from Greek vases to Oceanic art. While the series in general promises to prepare its audience to “read” all kinds of art objects, the resulting title for this specific installment is particularly apt, because it points to the most fundamental (and fascinating) characteristic of Islamic calligraphy: that it is an art form meant to be seen as well as read." -- read more --


Patrick J D'Silva also wrote a positive review of the book for Reading Religion, published July 25, 2019.

I have not read the book.

Documentary: "Border Bandits" by Kirby Warnock

Update: The full film is now available on YouTube for free! Video starts at 1:17.

Border Bandits is a documentary and dramatization of the murder of two Hispanic USA citizens, Antonio Longoria and Jesus Bazan, by the Texas Rangers in 1915 in an area of the border with Mexico near the confluence of the Pecos and Rio Grande Rivers. While USA popular culture has glorified the Texas Rangers, the documentary notes its participation in two waves of violence directed at the people in the path of white supremacist settler colonialism in that region. The first wave was in the mid-19th century, and it was directed against the Apache and Comanche indigenous nations. The second took place under cover of the Bandit War and the Mexican Revolution in the 1910s, and it was conterminous with the dispossession of Hispanic landowners in favor of Anglos. The documentary places the 1915 murders in the context of this second wave of violence, where up to 5,000 Hispanics were murdered as corporate Anglo agricultural interests took over the region.

Kirby Warnock's grandfather related in an oral history project that his father, Roland Warnock, had known the two murder victims and had participated in their burial. You can read the transcript.

The documentary explores the events of that day and the subsequent lives of the participants and their descendants. As such, it is a good example of social history.

When I watched the movie, I thought of the following:

1. The importance of oral history. If you have a relationship with an elderly person, ask that person about his or her childhood and record your conversation. Or get them to talk with StoryCorps.
2. The similarities in USA warfare from the original wars the Anglo colonists waged against the indigenous nations on the Atlantic coast of North America, through the Bandit War and now the Global War on Terror. The settler colonialists took advantage of divisions or acts of violence to mobilize its military and militias to seize resources from the indigenous or colonized peoples.
3. The wholescale violence employed in these wars & ethnic cleansings resulted in some blowback as murder replaced peaceful methods of conflict resolution. Roland Warnock, the great grandfather of the film's producer, was murdered in broad daylight in front of his son, who produced the testimony which forms the basis of the film.
4. The pressing need for every parent to read Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen and review their children's social studies curricula.
5. Uncle Karl (Marx) & Uncle Friedrich (Engles) were on the money when they said that police's purpose is to preserve the ruling class's control over the means of production.

The collective Refusing to Forget published an excellent thread on Twitter about an atrocity the Texas Rangers commited in 1918.

#OTD on January 28, 1918, Texas Rangers massacred fifteen men and boys at the village of Porvenir, Texas, in what is perhaps the single most notorious and consequential event in the history of the Ranger Force. 1/ pic.twitter.com/HOAI1v7B20

— Refusing to Forget (@Refusing2Forget) January 28, 2023

Alif Baa Taa: Learning My Arabic Alphabet by Asma Wahab, designed by Nadia Afghani

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Our two books side to side! Both 6 inches x 6 inches, perfect for little hands!!. . . Yes our book is not the cheapest on the market, and it’s not a large book. But, we designed every aspect of our book with little hands in mind. We wanted to keep costs as low as we can for our customers while keeping quality high. . . . We wanted our books to be able to fit in any purse, or bag so it can come with you in the go. Larger books tend to stay at home and not get read as much. In order to get familiar with the language little hands need to see it often. So next time you are headed out the door, remember to pack our books to entertain your little one!. . . . . . #muslimmom #muslimmummy #muslimbaby #arabicbooks #learnarabic #eidgifts #dubaiexpat #expatmom #arabmoms #arabkids #arabicalphabet #muslimauthors #alifbata #teachingarabic #cmwwednesday #readyforramadan2019 #muslimwomen #multilingual #islamicart #islamic_art #islamicschool #islamicparenting #mixedbabies #kidsbooks #eidshopping #babybooks #babybooksgift

A post shared by Civilian Publishing (@civilianpublishing) on Mar 16, 2019 at 12:42pm PDT

Elise Bellin, Librarian of the Islamic Resource Center, wrote a review published at Wisconsin Muslim Journal.

With clear, borderless illustrations and large, recognizable script, this board book brings the basics of the Arabic alphabet to young Western audiences. Paired with each basic letter form, Wahab has included the transliterated sound, a common Arabic word in standard script, and the word’s transliteration. A simple illustration of that word brings understanding to the audience as well. -- read more --

I haven't read the book. You can acquire it here.

Review: Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet

I first heard about Jennine Capó Crucet's Make Your Home Among Strangers when students at Georgia Southern University burned it after she spoke there about white privilege in the Fall of 2019.

The novel deals with many vital themes, but I recommend it especially for students in high school & college who may have mixed feelings about stretching their wings for personal achievement.

Favorite Quotes from "Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption" by Bryan Stevenson

This entry contains some quotes from Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. Stevenson is one of the founders of the Equal Justice Initiative. His work is profiled in a documentary and a soon-to-be released feature film.

Proximity to the condemned and incarcerated made the question of each person's humanity more urgent and meaningful, including my own. p. 12

I have discovered, deep in the hearts of many condemned and incarcerated people, the scattered traces of hope and humanity -- seeds of restoration that come to astonishing life when nurtured by very simple interventions. p. 17

Review: Apple TV's "Hala"

Apple TV's movie Hala was released today. It has it all. White gaze, titillation, a violent father, the unveiling of an oppressed Muslim girl. Spare yourself 90 minutes of face-palming and read our review instead https://t.co/SWziWgxYUf

— Muslim Impossible (@Muslmpossible) December 6, 2019

Hala receives three bloodied swords [out of 5] for its depiction of a violent and controlling Muslim man, for its one dimensionality, and for falsely perceiving itself as complex and nuanced in its portrayal of Muslims. --- read more --

I have not seen the movie.

Free eBooks from U of California Press through the Luminos Project

Luminos is a University of California Press project to publish scholarly monographs and provide Open Access to their electronic versions.

Comments on "To the Far Right Christian Hater...You Can Be a Good Speller or a Hater, But You Can't Be Both" by Bonnie Weinstein

I read To the Far Right Christian Hater ... You Can Be a Good Speller or a Hater, but You Can't Be Both by Bonnie Weinstein in a book club I organized as a member of the local chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It consists of hate messages sent to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), occasionally accompanied by a pithy rejoinder from the author, who is married to the organization's founder, Mikey Weinstein.

While the Establishment Clause of the USA Constitution has brought this society many benefits, some of which I've mentioned elsewhere, this book can open eyes to the dangers the continuation of the Global War on Terror (GWOT), in its neoconservative Bush-the-Small iteration or its neoliberal Obama iteration or its 45 Regime kill all non-whites iteration.

Comments on "Dear Martin" by Nic Stone

My county's Board of Education decided to exclude Dear Martin by Nic Stone from the list of novels literature teachers can choose to assign to students to read and from its media centers. Upon checking it out from my local library and reading it, I have a lot to say about why I think my county's board of education made a mistake. For the purposes of this blog, however, I urge parents and guardians of every background to read and discuss this book with their children.

The interactions of the characters pose better, more pressing questions than any other piece of Young Adult literature I know. For non-black children growing up in majority white suburban areas, it hopefully will prevent them from asking the first black person they meet when they go to university about their standardized test scores or where they can score weed.

Film: We Believe in Dinosaurs

The IMDB entry for the documentary film We Believe in Dinosaurs will tell you that it explores the people behind the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter Park in Kentucky. I'm telling you it is an understated cry for anti-fascist action. And if you think that's a hyperbolic statement, then you haven't been paying attention to my entries tagged fascism at this blog and at my other blog. You are Günter Grass's Social Democrat.

Review: The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War by Eilleen Welsome

Eileen Welsome's The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War should be a cautionary tale for all people considering scientific and technological solutions to grave problems. People in authority -- intelligent, ambitious, competent, hard-working people who talk well, smell good and love their children -- will always place their goals above the harms their actions do to people they consider less consequential. As humanity approaches the cliff of the climate catastrophe, many beneficiaries of greenhouse gas emitting economic activities will propose technological remedies with unknown and unknowable consequences, and you can be sure that these proposals' main feature is they keep the people on top in the same relative position of privilege.

Welsome's book is like a compilation of "long-read" articles describing various aspects of the United States's military's dealings with nuclear energy during the development of the first atomic bomb and through the next few decades as it attempted to find tactical uses for nuclear weapons.

Review: Love Thy Neighbor: A Muslim Doctor's Struggle for Home in Rural America by Ayaz Virji with Alan Eisenstock

Maya Rao reviewed Love They Neighbor: A Muslim Doctor's Struggle for Home in Rural America by Ayaz Virji with Alan Eisenstock for the Lincoln Journal Star for August 11, 2019.

So many narratives about rural America in the wake of President Donald Trump's election have been told through the eyes of the white working class. Yet Ayaz Virji's memoir as a Muslim doctor in small-town Minnesota offers a revealing perspective that challenges us to think more broadly about community and faith in Trump Country, where the author chronicles the conflicts between his calling to practice rural medicine and find acceptance in his religious identity. --- read more ---

National Public Radio published an interview with Dr. Ayaz on June 19, 2019.

I have not read the book. Find it in a nearby library.

Review: Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying - The Secret WWII Transcripts of German POWs by Sönke Neitzel and Harald Welzer

Sönke Neitzel & Harald Welzer. Jefferson Chase, translator. Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying - The Secret WWII Transcripts of German POWs. Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2012.

Jennifer Teege, author of My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me, spoke in my town. I asked her about English language books which might help me understand the mentality of Germans during fascism, and she recommend this book.

Sönke Neitzel, a historian, and Harald Welzer, a social psychologist, analyzed declassified transcripts of surreptitiously recorded conversations of German prisoners of war in British & American prisons during World War II. These transcripts confirm both the shocking level of violence fascists unleashed and the suitability of the psychological and institutional structures of a modern capitalist, industrial society to support this violence. Reading it in the United States of America in 2019 increases the urgency of radical resistance to oligarch-inspired labor docility, militarism and global genocide through ecological destruction.

Review: "Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

I first heard about Professor Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's book Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment on either Black Agenda Radio or On Contact with Christ Hedges.

I've never liked guns. People I know died by suicide with a gun or accident. A stranger pointed a gun at me in a road rage incident when I was a teenager. And, when I fired guns at a shooting range, the extent to which I liked it frightened me. On my social media, I follow and promote @Well_Regulated_, which publicizes tragic incidences of uses of firearms in the United States. I tell people I support "smart" gun control, which in my mind means requiring registration of weapons, restricting sales of weapons & munitions designed to kill masses of people and stripping rights to weapons from particular classes of convicted criminals, such as domestic violence offenders.

Review: Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America

In Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, Ari Berman describes the events which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, its impacts and the countermeasures its opponents took since then to undermine it through the book's publication in 2015.

I hope reading the book will motivate you to make sure you are registered to vote and actually vote in every election and attempt to understand your options in each election. And when you find your options are limited, then act to improve your options.

The book also is a great example of a phenomenon James W. Loewen identified in Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. Our public schools, for a variety of reasons, teach students that the United States always improves without explaining that people contested all issues, and some people won and others lost and sometimes those who lost won later. So we have this idea that "Civil Rights" happened in the 1960s, and, well, "problem solved."

"Even with good intentions, Hollywood still struggles to portray Muslims accurately or fairly, much less positively"

Edward Ahmed Mitchell, Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations - Georgia, describes his involvement in the production of the 2019 remake of Shaft and his reaction after watching the movie.

As a civil rights activist with the Georgia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, most of the emails I receive involve deadly serious topics: hate speech…hate crimes…discrimination…Donald Trump’s latest tweet. So you can perhaps imagine my surprise when I received an email last year from a casting director for the latest sequel to the classic blaxploitation film Shaft, which was filming in Atlanta. --- read more ---

And of course I have to include the Isaac Hayes theme song to the original Shaft.

 

P.S. (April 8, 2020) - I watched Shaft (2019) on HBO today. The plot, as Brother Edward described, is a barely adequate veneer for the real story: the emergence of a third generation Shaft as portrayed by Jessie T. Usher, who like his grandfather Richard Roundtree (Shaft, 1971) & his father Samuel Jackson (Shaft, 2000), decides to stop "working for the man." Jessie begins the movie as an awkward hipster & ends it as another "man with the plan."

Law & Order: SVU S20E23 "Assumptions" Was Thoroughly Anti-Muslim

NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 20, Episode 23 "Assumptions" poorly handled recent controversies and promoted anti-Muslim stereotypes.

Short Film: "Refuge" by Mohammad Gorjestani and starring Nikohl Boosheri

“A brewing war with Iran, xenophobic sentiments towards immigrants, an exploitative tech industry—these things seemed farfetched in 2014, but time has made this thoughtful sci-fi short film seem prophetic. We revisit REFUGE on https://t.co/YlCPZggs8h today.” pic.twitter.com/Sa5gBvztQ8

— Kadena Source 💔 (@KadenaSource) May 15, 2019

The movie Refuge, directed by Mohammad Gorjestani (Twitter & IMDB) and starring Nikohl Boosheri, was the featured short film on May 14, 2019 at shortfilmoftheweek.com.

Favorite Quotes: Günter Grass, "The Tin Drum"

Günter Grass received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999, and his most famous book is Die Blechtrommel, translated into English as The Tin Drum. The June 4, 2007 New Yorker published his account of his participation as a teenager in the German Nazi war effort. Because he had not disclosed these matters publicly, despite his reputation as a critic of post-war Germany's attempts to forget its fascism and its crimes and their popularity, he received much criticism.

I read the 1961 Ralph Manheim translation, but some of these quotes are from the Breon Mitchell 2009 translation. Click to enlarge images.

Favorite Quotes: Dorothy Day, "The Long Loneliness: An Autobiography"

The best source for information on Dorothy Day is the Catholic Worker website.

These quotes are from the 1981 HarperCollins paperback of the 1952 book.

Some of her description of her mentor, Peter Maurin:

Peter made you feel a sense of his mission as soon as you met him. He did not begin by tearing down, or by painting so intense a picture of misery and injustice that you burned to change the world. Instead, he aroused in you a sense of your own capacities for work, for accomplishment. He made you feel that you and all men had great and generous hearts with which to love God. If you once recognized this fact in yourself you would expect and find it in others. [p. 171]

Documentary: "The War to Be Her" by Erin Heidenreich

 
Description on PBS.org site: "In the Taliban-controlled area of Waziristan in northwestern Pakistan, where sports for women are decried as un-Islamic and girls rarely leave their houses, young Maria Toorpakai (Instagram) defies the rules by disguising herself as a boy so she can play squash freely. As she becomes a rising star, however, her true identity is revealed, bringing constant death threats on her and her family.

"In July 2018, POV asked The War to Be Her filmmaker Erin Heidenreich what's happened since the cameras stopped rolling."

PBS created a supplemental reading list, a lesson plan and discussion guide. The film has a Facebook page.

Review: American Hate: Survivors Speak Out by Arjun Singh Sethi (ed.)

Arjun Singh Sethi's volume consists of his introduction and conclusion and thirteen accounts by victims of hate crimes and/or their surviving relatives. A web site accompanies the book.

I've never met Professsor Arjun, but he was kind enough to consult in the case of a hate crime in my city.

Even though I'd heard about most of the thirteen cases, the power of the testimonials still overwhelmed me. I had not adequately considered the long-term effects of these crimes on their immediate victims, and many of the initial media accounts did not include poignant details revealed in this volume.

Documentary on Ongoing Human Rights Violations in Yemen - "In Darkness" by Mwatana

New Documentary by Mwatana on arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearance by all conflict parties in Yemen. وثائقي جديد لمواطنة يسلط الضوء على الاعتقال التعسفي و الاختفاء القسري، اللذان تمارسهما كافة أطراف النزاع في اليمن.
 
Ask your Senators and Representatives to support Senate Joint Resolution 7 to end USA involvement in Yemen.

Play: “The Who and the What”: Written by Ayad Akhtar, Directed by Hana S. Sharif

Lily Janiak wrote a review of The Who and the What, written by Ayad Akhtar and directed by Hana S. Sharif in the March 6, 2019 San Francisco Chronicle. It is playing through March 24 at the Marin Theatre Company, north of San Francisco.

I haven't seen a performance.

Movie: The Other Wife, directed by Khalil Ismail, based on novel by Umm Zakiyyah

Khalil Ismail's movie His Other Wife, based on Umm Zakiyyah's novel of the same title, is available through Amazon Prime USA.
I haven't seen the movie or read the book.

Film: Timbuktu - Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako

LinkTV allows you to stream the movie Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2014) for free until January 24, 2019. It's available on iTunes and Amazon.

Trailer
Clip from the movie:

Timbuktu's director: why I dared to show hostage-taking jihadis in a new light by Danny Leigh, The Guardian, May 28, 2015

Abderrahmane Sissako for Beginners by Basia Lewandowska Cummings, BFI.org.uk, May 27, 2015

Re-Opening of Penn Museum's Middle East Galleries

The November/December 2018 issue of Islamic Horizons has an article by Kenneth Wahrenberger describing some of the contents of the newly reopened Penn Museum's Middle East Galleries. (click to enlarge)

The Penn Museum is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Plan your visit!

Suggested Reading List from "Girls of the Crescent"

Habeeba Husain profiled Girls of the Crescent in the 2018 November/December issue of Islamic Horizons. Sisters Zena & Mena Nasiri founded Girls of the Crescent in 2018 to promote materials in public libraries which represent the variety of experiences of Muslim girls and women. On December 7, 2018, I downloaded its suggested books and searched for them in the online Georgia public library system PINES. I created a public list for the books Girls of the Crescent recommended which are available in the PINES-participating public libraries. I used worldcat.org to create a list for the books I couldn't find in Georgia's PINES. A few books are not in either list.

I hope library users in my state of Georgia would request these materials. Remember, if your branch library doesn't have a book you want, you can request the branch library to retrieve the book from other participating libraries. You can do this online with a PINES account or at the circulation desk. Also note that some public libraries don't participate in PINES, particularly those in Atlanta.

I've reviewed children's books on this blog.

New York Islamic Arts Collective at Bernardsville, NJ Al-Hamra Art Center

New York Islamic Arts invites you to the opening of the “Peace and Mercy” exhibition on December 2nd 4-6pm at the Alhamra Art Center. Works of illumination, paper cutting, marbling, calligraphy, and miniature paintings from NYIA artists will be on display from Dec 2nd-Jan 20th. . . . . . #exhibition #exhibits #artevents #tazhib #tezhip #fineart #islamicart #traditionalart #sacredart #illumination #gilding #turkish #calligraphy #thuluth #arabiccalligraphy #khat #islamicdesign #islam #gold #manuscript #quran #instamuslim #turkishart #persianart #mashallah #islamic #ebru #marbling

A post shared by New York Islamic Arts (@nyislamicarts) on Nov 13, 2018 at 10:31am PST

The web site of the New York Islamic Arts Collective is https://www.nyislamicarts.com/. The exhibit is scheduled to run at the Al-Hamra Art Center through January 20, 2019. Here's a map.