okay, couldn't resist posting one last thing..

Beauty v/s Babies and Beards

By: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
courtesy: Beliefnet

(excerpt)

Have you ever tried to infiltrate business class holding a baby? Had I arrived with something actually ticking that said “BOMB” in big, bold letters, I would have been accorded a more pleasant reception. Everyone looked at me as if I had boarded with an obvious contagious disease.

The baby, coupled with the fact that the guy bringing “it” on board had a yarmulke and an unruly beard (i.e., obviously one of those religious fanatics who is far too fertile by half), had most of the passengers ready to trade in their expensive business-class tickets to fly cargo.

Next, the official persecution began. After great efforts on my part to get settled with my baby into my seat, while maintaining access to the thirty books that I needed to research my next book, the flight attendant walked over.

“Is that your seat?” she asked, skepticism oozing out of every well-powdered pore.
I confirmed that it was.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
I confirmed that I was.
“I’m going to have to see your boarding pass.” I was indignant. “Let me get this straight,” I said to her. “There are thirty passengers in business, and you single me out and demand my boarding pass?”
“If you don’t immediately present your boarding pass, I will have you removed from the airplane.” I picked up the baby, removed the library from my lap, reached into the overhead compartment, rummaged through my bag, found the boarding pass, presented it to the stewardess, and took a deep breath.

She looked it over. There it was, in black and white, Seat 2F. “Wait here,” she said. She went to the front of the aircraft, returning a few minutes later. “Were you upgraded on this flight?” “No,” I said, “I was booked in business from the outset.” Foiled in her mission to rid business class of beards and babies, she retreated to the other well-coiffed stewardess, and spent the next ten hours whispering and pointing, even after the baby was transferred to to my wife who was sitting with the common folks.

Fast forward, two weeks. I am now traveling first class on a flight from Newark to Dallas, courtesy of a TV station. I have no baby, just a laptop. They announce that First Class passengers may board. I start ambling forward when, pushing through the crowd, I am scuttled aside by a very tall, leggy blonde. Her arrogant demeanor says one thing: model.
Within a few minutes she is ensconced in her bulkhead seat, a pristine white poodle by her side, which she hugs and kisses and shares her drink with. First I have to witness the nauseating spectacle of all of the female flight attendants queuing up to pet the dog. “Oh, is this yours? She’s just gorgeous. Oh, Stacy, come and look at this beautiful little furry thing.” How my baby and I had earlier been treated immediately comes to mind.
Later I notice that the flight attendants pretend not to see when Missy Long Legs holds the pooch during landing when “it” should have been put in its container.
The hypothetical scoreboard high in the clouds reads,
Beauty: One, Beard: Zero.
Dog: One. Baby: Zero.
I was frankly flummoxed by the degree of attention that was heaped upon this passenger, and how the other women treated her as their natural superior. In 1996, nearly 700,000 Americans underwent plastic surgery for aesthetic purposes. In the U.S. people spend more money on beauty than they do on education or social services—a good illustration of our priorities.

There is something seriously wrong in the world when children are treated as a nuisance while dogs are treated as love objects. And there is something seriously amiss when appearance, rather than actions, can dictate likeability. There is something dangerously off track when men and women who love children, and aren't afraid to have large families, must feel apologetic and guilty for doing so.
To paraphrase Martin Luther King, we await the day when our children will be judged by the content of their character rather than the comeliness of their skin. And we await the day when the fact of our children’s existence is not judged at all, but seen as the embodiment of infinite blessing .

going away for a bit...

stay safe everyone and keep us in your prayers in shaa Allaah!

I, Me, My Self; We, Us, Our Selves

I have a son who's (nearly) as old as the little toddler below.

He's as precious, and as full of promise. He brings his parents as much joy.

Little Khalid's death is sad on so many levels -- it's not the first, it won't be the last; and it would need much more than an official AP picture to jolt us out of our carefully contructed collective insulation.

Like I said,

it's a pity

we only feel sorry

for Our Selves.

innaa lillaahi wa innaa ilayhi raaji'oon

The body of 15-month old Palestinian toddler Khalid Wahbeh in the morgue of a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah. AP

Speaking to Gulf News over the phone, Khalid's father, Nidal Wahbeh, said: "...Thank God for everything. He gives and He takes."

do boys need fathers?

Do boys need fathers? This woman says no!

The Observer

...the raising of sons has become one of the most contentious social issues of our times. Whole shelves in the parenting section of bookshops are dedicated to the subject of the next generation of boys (in comparison to relatively few titles about bringing up girls). The prevailing wisdom is that a boy must be raised with a man in the house; otherwise he is likely to fail his exams, drop out of school, career off the rails.

Now Peggy Drexler, an assistant professor of psychology at Cornell University and a former gender scholar at Stanford University, has published Raising Boys Without Men: How Maverick Moms are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men (Rodale Books). In a unique study she followed more than 60 fatherless families over 10 years. As time went by she practically became another member of the family in these households. She picked up boys from school, dropped them off at sports clubs, spent weekends and holidays talking in depth to both them and their mothers. All the while taking notes and taping conversations. What she discovered stunned her and has divided public opinion. It goes to the heart of the very idea of the apple-pie American family: is it necessary for a son to have a dad?

Since the book was published she has criss-crossed the country, talking about her research in the nation's bookshops, lecture theatres, radio stations and television studios. She's been short-listed for publishing awards and approached by HBO to make a documentary based on the families she met. Her findings contradict many judges, social scientists, religious groups and pundits. But what she discovered was that a boy's morality and masculinity can be cultivated without a live-in father.

Indeed, she goes even further. In her view, traditional families have much to learn from these households: that boys from fatherless homes can fare better than boys raised in nuclear families.
'We have a vocal group who want to keep things the same and to deify the ideal family. But coming from a traditional family is not in and of itself going to make a boy into a moral, law-abiding, decent person or a good husband or a good father.' In short, parenting is either good or deficient, not male or female.
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ps: hmmm...I have LOTS to say and no time to say it in right now...watch this space, though!

isn't this supposed to be a *vacation*?

Day in the life of Rasha-Rida:
lazing around, lingering in bed
leisurely breakfasts
reading all day and nearly all night
endless Nemo/Mulan/whatever-catches-one's-fancy re-runs
several course meals (okay that's an exaggeration)
oodles of noodles between meals
extended playing hours
interspersed with some Qur'aan memorisation and a cautious sprinkling of study

Day in the life of the Ed:

just 60 + days more to go...in shaa Allaah

posts that make you LOL

Lamentations of the Father
by Ian Frazier
at ICUBaji

Race!

سَابِقُوا إِلَى مَغْفِرَةٍ مِّن رَّبِّكُمْ

وَجَنَّةٍ عَرْضُهَا كَعَرْضِ السَّمَاء وَالْأَرْضِ

أُعِدَّتْ لِلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرُسُلِهِ

ذَلِكَ فَضْلُ اللَّهِ يُؤْتِيهِ مَن يَشَاءُ

وَاللَّهُ ذُو الْفَضْلِ الْعَظِيمِ

رضاء

3rd July

today was the day Rida was born...although it isn't her birthday as in 'birthday-birthday'...that's because we don't do days ...

the day went splendidly well alhamdulillaah..it was Monday , so she had the additional blessing of following the Sunnah..in that the Prophet صلىالله عليه وسلم fasted on Mondays, which was also the day he was born...after a scrumptious iftaar, we are replete with pasta, puff pastry, chocolate cakes, watermelon and chicken nuggets...all her favourite food.

I think back to the time I learnt that she was to be born, I was in med-school in my second year, and when I learnt that I was to be a mother again, I decided to name the baby رضاء

the word has a masculine form that means contentment (with the will of Allaah)

and a feminine form that means favoured (by Allaah)

I believe that names have a bearing on one's character...and I pray that she will be twice blessed in this world and the next, aameen.

PS: I found this cool site on the etymology and history of first names..interesting stuff

poems that make you LoL

The Parent

Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.

Ogden Nash

books that make you lol

“ Tom!’
No answer…
“Tom!”
No answer…

‘What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You Tom!’
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; she seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy, for they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for ‘style’, not service ; she could see through a stove lid as well. She looked perplexed a moment and said, not fiercly , but still loud enough for the furniture to hear, ‘ Well, I lay if I get hold of you I’ll-’

She did not finish , for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with a broom, so she needed enough breath to punctuate the punches with…

She resurrected nothing but a cat. ‘ I never did see the beat of the boy!’
She went to the open door, and stood in it, and looked among the tomato vines and jimpson weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance, and shouted:

‘YYYYYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUU Tom!’

There was a slight noise behind her, and she turned just in time to seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.
‘ There! I might have thought of that closet. What have you been doing there?’

‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing! Look at your hands, and look at your mouth. What is that truck?’
‘ I don’t know aunt.’
‘Well, I know. It’s jam, that’s what it is.Forty times I’ve told if you don’t leave the
jam alone I’d skin you. Hand me that switch.’

The switch hovered in the air. The peril was desperate.
‘My! Look behind you, aunt!’
The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger, and the lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board fence, and disappered over it. His Aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, then broke into a gentle laugh.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer/Mark Twain
* * *
By *Rasha*