tag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2007://5 2007-05-14T22:34:37Z ...in 200 words Movable Type 3.34 tag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2006:/test//5.74 2006-01-13T03:42:53Z 2007-05-14T22:34:37Z

Here is an organization that deserves attention for it’s effort to build bridges between the Muslim and Jewish communities, particularly among high-school and college students: the Abraham’s Vision. I discovered Abraham’s Vision through Gibran Bouayad, one of the organization’s executive...

Zarina Abraham’s Vision. I discovered Abraham’s Vision through Gibran Bouayad, one of the organization’s executive directors, who wrote me asking if I could speak to the students in a Jewish high-school about Islam. The students of this school, the Heschel High School in Manhattan, together with the students of a Muslim school, al-Iman School in Queens, are the participants of the Unity Program where all of them are engaged actively in series of meetings, discussions and lectures to instill better understanding of each other. To track their own progress, they document their reflections in the program’s blog. Their blog entries are interesting to read; the students are honest and open about their reactions to the exchange of ideas. Anyway, I went to the Heschel school on January 10, which coincidentally was the 'Eid of Adha. It was only appropriate for me to talk to the students about the Hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam that commemorates prophet Abraham. And here is yours truly, trying to look all scholarly.]]> tag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2005:/test//5.73 2005-10-02T22:56:13Z 2007-04-29T23:00:24Z

A mathematical poem by Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska. The admirable number pi: three point one four one. All the following digits are also initial, five nine two because it never ends. It can’t be comprehended six five three five at...

Zarina Wislawa Szymborska. The admirable number pi: three point one four one. All the following digits are also initial, five nine two because it never ends. It can’t be comprehended six five three five at a glance. eight nine by calculation, seven nine or imagination, not even three two three eight by wit, that is, by comparison four six to anything else two six four three in the world. The longest snake on earth calls it quits at about forty feet. Likewise, snakes of myth and legend, though they may hold out a bit longer. The pageant of digits comprising the number pi doesn’t stop at the page’s edge. It goes on across the table, through the air, over a wall, a leaf, a bird’s nest, clouds, straight into the sky, through all the bottomless, bloated heavens. Oh how brief—a mouse tail, a pigtail—is the tail of a comet! How feeble the star’s ray, bent by bumping up against space! While here we have two three fifteen three hundred nineteen my phone number your shirt size the year nineteen hundred and seventy-three the sixth floor the number of inhabitants sixty-five cents hip measurement two fingers a charade, a code, in which we find hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert alongside ladies and gentlemen, no cause for alarm, as well as heaven and earth shall pass away, but not the number pi, oh no, nothing doing, it keeps right on with its rather remarkable five, its uncommonly fine eight, its far from final seven, nudging, always nudging a sluggish eternity to continue.]]> tag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2004:/test//5.72 2004-08-06T22:50:56Z 2007-04-29T22:55:33Z

This is a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The water understands Civilization well: It wets my foot, but prettily, It chills my life, but wittily, It is not disconcerted, It is not broken-hearted: Well used, it decketh joy, Adorneth, doubleth...

Zarina Ralph Waldo Emerson. The water understands Civilization well: It wets my foot, but prettily, It chills my life, but wittily, It is not disconcerted, It is not broken-hearted: Well used, it decketh joy, Adorneth, doubleth joy: Ill used, it will destroy, In perfect time and measure With a face of golden pleasure Elegantly destroy.]]>