Rockstars dress in red dresses. Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
It wasn’t enough that I’ve been getting emails about children I never knew I had (Bethany is still quite busy unleashing her slacker tendencies, by the way). Now I’m receiving emails from the Office of the Governor…of the State of Kansas. This is better than Bethany, […]

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Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
It’s over, but right now I’m too exhausted (and sunburnt) to clearly reflect on the experience. A huge gratitude-filled “Thank you” to the superstar SI, who called me Friday afternoon from the East Coast to wish us good luck. Photos and lengthy descriptions coming soon. Click the photo above, or check the […]

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why don’t the newscasters cry/when they read about people who die?
Last night, on a whim, my sister and I rented and watched Promises, a powerful and compelling documentary that follows seven Palestinian and Israeli children over the course of several years, between 1995-2000. I’d heard about this documentary for years, but had somehow never gotten […]

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rebel and a liberator, find a way to be a skater
Welcome to the first day of Winter Quarter 2005. Aww Lord, here we go again.
And the post title has nothing to do with anything, just so you know. But I am easily amused, and this we also know.
Real updates coming soon to a weblog near […]

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we are hella paranoid, yes we are
I could almost swear that the girl who cashed my paycheck for me at the Bank of America in my hometown yesterday morning waved, “Bye, Yaz!” to me as I turned away from her counter on my way out. Neither her name nor her face were even vaguely familiar. […]

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re. “sore losers”
And one more thing, from a post by Leila, whose entire archives deserve to be read:

I think I need to clarify what I meant when I said I hoped we wouldn’t be sore losers. I did not mean that we should give up activism, our beliefs, or our place in society. I did […]

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still wearing my “i voted” sticker - for all the difference it made.
As always, Sofia said it very well:

Let me be like the Ahl Al Kahf and surrender to slumber for another century, or at least another four years, where God protects me for being a true believer, so that when I wake up the […]

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i voted today, and i hope you do, too.
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. […]

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i live to amuse you, abuse you, infuse you with the weirdness
S: Yasmine, you’re such a display case.
Yasmine: Uhh, okay. And what’s that supposed to mean?
S: I don’t know, you’re just always so entertaining to look at.
I wonder if it was the red pants. Or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been wearing real, actual […]

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the impromptu We Are the World rendition of ‘Tala al Badru Alayna’

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the diwan

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help out a beautiful cause, fi sabeelillah
Buy a t-shirt and be a rockstar just like meeeeeeeee.

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one year, and nothing’s changed
A young woman named Layla Kaiksow periodically sends out long, detailed emails to those of us who have asked her to stay in touch while she volunteers and does research in Palestine. It is fitting - in a bitter, ironic way - that her email received yesterday on the one year […]

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and it just never ends
“This is to show our rejection of violence and our solidarity with the families (of the dead)…”
[via AnneCentral]

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an evening of recitation and praise
This is a short video clip of a recitation of Imam al-Busiri’s Burdah* (Poem of the Cloak) at Zaytuna Institute. Absolutely beautiful. The reciter is Shaykh Murtaza, who heads a masjid in San Francisco. I heard him recite the Burdah in person at Zaytuna’s Evening of Gratitude tribute dinner in […]

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