A felow uni colleague speaks of her time in Israel this July

Haringey Green Party: Released from Israeli jail: "Well I spent yesterday trying to chill out after a rather expensive long weekend in an Israeli jail. I guess most people already heard that..."

A felow uni colleague speaks of her time in Israel this July

Haringey Green Party: Released from Israeli jail: "Well I spent yesterday trying to chill out after a rather expensive long weekend in an Israeli jail. I guess most people already heard that..."

Don't forget!!

Food glorious food

When it comes to matters of food I consider myself more of a consumer then a creator but for you, I'm willing to try the other side...

Quote of my day

"Whoever’s sin was because of [carnal] desires, hope

for him (as he may repent and be forgiven),

but whoever’s sin was out of pride, fear for him.

For indeed, Adam sinned out of simple desire, and was

forgiven; Whereas Iblis sinned out of pride, and was

cursed. " - Sufyaan bin Uyainah

[not a hadith]

I don't often post religious epithets or hadeeth that much anymore but some of which I hear I am compelled to share.

Presenting the blogging premier of.....

I am ridiculously proud to present a short production by a very dear friend of mine Nada Aboudahab. A young fashionista taking trend out of the box and giving it a courageous kick up the behind. This is her awesome contemporary vision representing one of the edgy shoulder pieces by designer Dean Sideway.

VERR from Volt Magazine on Vimeo.

....yep! I know her :D

Fury over advert claiming Egypt revolution as Vodafone's

Vodafone advertisement produced by JWT that suggests the phone company helped inspire the Egyptian revolution.

Vodafone is facing a backlash in Egypt over an advert suggesting it helped inspire this year's revolution in the country.

The three-minute commercial featured excerpts from a Vodafone ad campaign entitled Our Power, which was launched three weeks before an anti-government uprising swept the country. The video goes on to show images from protest rallies in Cairo's Tahrir Square before claiming: "We didn't send people to the streets, we didn't start the revolution … We only reminded Egyptians how powerful they are."

The short film features screengrabs of Facebook and Twitter messages posted by Egyptians approving of the Vodafone ad campaign, then an audio recording of Hosni Mubarak's resignation as president being announced on TV.

In fact, many pro-change activists blame Vodafone and other mobile phone companies for following Egyptian government orders and implementing a communications blackout at the height of the revolution. They have condemned the advert as a "sickening" attempt to push up sales by "riding the revolutionary bandwagon", and an insult to the hundreds who died in the struggle to bring down Mubarak.

"Apparently this tagline inspired people to take the streets," said prominent blogger Mohamed El-Dahshan in one of many angry and satirical responses that have spread across the web. "I mean, never mind the years of activism, the protests, the decades of cumulated grievances, the terrible economic situation, the trampled political freedoms, the police brutality, the torture, etc. Nah – we just watched a Vodafone ad, and thought: 'Hey! We're powerful! Let's topple the president!'"

Vodafone has strongly disassociated itself from the commercial, which was produced by the international marketing firm JWT. "The company does not have any connection to this video and had no prior knowledge of its production or posting on the internet," said Hatem Dowidar, the chief executive of Vodafone Egypt.

The advert appeared on the public website of JWT, which was hired by Vodafone Egypt to mastermind its recent communications strategy. The agency said the video was for "internal use" only and "not intended for public display". It has since been removed from the website, as havecopies posted on YouTube.

Egyptians queued up to vent their disbelief online. One YouTube comment said: "Are you guys seriously planning on leeching something out of this after you cut the phones and internet, after protesters who were being shot at could not call others and warn them about being shot at by snipers because of you? SHAME!"

Pro-change activist and former Google executive Wael Ghonim, who became an international media star of the revolution following his arrest and subsequent TV interview about the ordeal, also denounced the advert as unethical and accused JWT of using his name in the advert without permission. Meanwhile, a new website namedihatevodafoneegypt.com has rapidly become an online sensation.

To make matters worse for Vodafone and JWT, both the original ad campaign and the latest video feature Adel Emam, a veteran Egyptian actor who initially denounced the pro-change protests in January and has been widely derided in Egypt for his close links with the Mubarak family.

Vodafone is one of several firms in Egypt that agreed to shut off its mobile and internet networks in the early stages of the revolt as the government attempted to isolate anti-Mubarak protesters. It also allowed the Mubarak regime to send out anti-revolutionary text messages en masse to subscribers. It said it had no choice and has since apologised.

The firm is facing a series of legal challenges over what some critics have called its "complicity in dictatorship". It is accused of passing on information about opposition activists to the Mubarak regime's security services – a claim seemingly confirmed by Vodafone's global head of content standards, Annie Mullins, in February 2009 but later denied by Vodafone Egypt.

"All companies in Egypt are trying to use revolutionary and nationalist imagery right now to drive sales and in most cases it doesn't concern me," said Ramy Raoof, an activist with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights who had his own Vodafone Egypt service cut off for several months under orders from Mubarak's apparatus.

"But when the communications companies try it – the ones who handed out our personal information to state security, the ones who shut down our lines and who helped the government cut us off – it's too far. People are talking about compensation but we don't want money. We want to see people on trial."

Vodafone is not the only mobile firm to come under fire for its alleged use of revolutionary material for marketing. Rival company Mobinil launched a huge advertising campaign at Cairo airport with billboardsfeaturing quotes from world leaders such as Barack Obama and Silvio Berlusconi praising the Egyptian revolution, stamped with the Mobinil logo.

"We have not used any images of the Egyptian revolution at any time in any of our external promotional material," a Vodafone spokesperson told the Guardian. "Any suggestions to the contrary are incorrect."

• Jack Shenker
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 3 June 2011 15.15 BST

Tupac - I wrote this song in '94 [by Dave Chappelle]

A day at the zoo

A big part of me hates the idea of a zoo, I would go as far as to say that it is somewhat wrong. In fact its an incredibly archaic system of storing animals for selfish gain but then you look at London Zoo who use the money they raise into research and breeding and conservation, then there is the institutionalized side of me that says its normal and that there is nothing wrong with it and it is that side of me that usually wins over....

So I visited one of my favourite place in Cairo... Giza Zoo. For me, the animals at Giza zoo make up the background scenery, what I love to see most are the people, normal 'working class' Egyptians enjoying a family day out at the zoo. I don't know what it is exactly that entertains me so much at being around the general nas (people) of Cairo and usually it can become quite suffocating giving the sheer magnitude of the population here in Cairo. I thnk its the fact that here its a controlled environment, its magnificently green in contrast to the generally yellow country surrounding it without the young pubescent guys that holler at you from the sidelines or the random Taxi that follows you down a street convinced that you need his services lol. Basically, its full of happy people flowers and paths without pot-holes. My kind of place to be :)

Georges Kazazian - Tal el Amarna

Can't wait to see this live at Al-Azhar park June 16th Cairo!!!!! the best setting for the best sounds yayyyy (www.alazharpark.com)

Ta7ya ya Misr

Not long touched down in Cairo town. Staying out in the 'suburbs' area known as tegamo3a in a compound called Al Rehab, the place where I've had my fondest memories of Egypt so renting here was an urge of nostalgia. However I am pretty cut-off from the hustle and bustle of the city. Transport remains at an abundance and yesterday I found myself mooching around Giza Zoo.

Can't wait to start my internship with soliya on Monday in Tahrir and to set foot on the soil of the revolution. Along with that and all that I have in stall here with 'Draw a Smile' and our peers 'Face', as well as the reason for my presence in Egypt <3 I am Happy Al Hamdulilah rab al Akram xx

To do list

Agenda for today; Print research articles for my essay on 'The Wilton Dyptych' Take an anti-hystemine Mow the lawn Read the articles spark the barby... (unfortunately this is for my amusement only) ...To be continued

"No amount of guilt can change the past and no amount of worrying can change the future. Go easy on yourself, for the outcome of all affairs is determined by God's decree. If something is meant to go elsewhere, it will never come your way, but if it is yours by destiny, from you it cannot flee." [Umar Ibn al-Khattab]

Essays

So, I publish my essays on my blog under the page heading of 'If you think you can handle it'.To be honest I can't imagine anyone reading them only for the fact it isn't necessarily aesthetically pleasing and blogger makes publishing on a page difficult at the best of times.

The latest entry is an essay I wrote for my Judaism module about The Kabbalah. I actually enjoyed researching and writing this essay. I am currently writing an essay for the explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity for my Christian theology class, and I'm surprised to say that both themes are really quite similar. That is that they both seem to have eventuated via the philosophical questions of a believer to the nature and character of the Divine.

Any way it's all there if you are interested.......

The sea Draggon

So I was watching the Eden channel on sky to ease me out of my slumber and they were filming this amazing almost mythical creature called the sea draggon (like i was saying i was still somewhat groggy from sleep so couldn't tell you too much about it) but thought I would share Gods beautiful work with you all

The last few weeks have been...

Came across this from my blog feed:

“Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.”, Thomas Paine

Found it quite apt

Focus

Today, is a trialing day. Why is it that sometimes you wake up full of the air of promise, ready to embark on your 12 hour journey in the world of possibilities and other days your irritable, pessimistic and put-out by the sheer fact that you have to wake up and slave away to the schedule you've imposed on yourself.

So, there I am, butt to butt in the narrow corridor of a 'South Western' train being yelled at by the other disgruntled commuters who like me didn't wake up on 'the right side of the bed'. I try to take my irritated mind out of my hostile environment and pick up my kindle and start to read. I get a seat which forces me to try to put the day in a different light so I sit staring out on to the world with my usual 'lets change my energy' incantation (this usually consists of a sharp word or two with myself about gratitude). My mood slowly starts to shift and I am no longer in need of my 'London mantra'. A man in a suit sneezes rather loudly and as usual no one raises an eyebrow or batters an eyelid, the 'cold' demeanor of the English is one I'm always trying to surpass so I offer my 'bless you' as a charity which results in a 'how dare you take note of me' look from the man in question until he buries his head back into his news paper.

Sigh, 'don't let it phase you' I tell myself holding strong to the up-lifted disposition I earlier trained for. Eventually, I arrive at my final destination, fall up the stairs ready to laugh off my embarrassment as i lay on all fours splayed against the cold concrete, only to realise that people are actually tutting as they clamber over me. I route-march the mile walk to university, arrive to my lecture on time only to be told that it has been cancelled. I receive my 'marked' paper for an essay from last term realising that my marker couldn't even be bothered to write more than a sentence for the explanation of my rather poor mark.

Here, I am in the university library writing this out so I can mentally throw all the bad bits away and get on with some work. Yes, throw away the bad stuff.... Is that possible? I wonder...

Even a smile is charity

I have often tried to keep business and pleasure seperate but have made a huge mistake in doing so with this blog and my involvement (over the past year plus) with Draw a Smile.

Draw A Smile is forever keeping us all busy and what with the encroaching deadlines at uni I have often needed a productive distraction for breaks in reading. Essentially for me, thats where the Draw a Smile blog emerged from. However it has long been apparent to the founder (Ahmed Ali) and I that alot more can be said for what we (smilers) do on a day to day basis. Although we have the web site and the facebook page they are often used as a marketing or advertising tool where as every vollunteer that works at DAS has thousands of experiences to share. Experiences that have changed our lives and shaped our memories.

Please check us out, you don't know what your missing!

Website: http://www.drawasmile.org.uk/

Blog: http://evenasmileischarity.blogspot.com/ (still in progress)

Aid EGYPT - the quest to help our heroes

As some of you that pass through my blog may know, I am a very proud and devout member and one of the managers to Draw a Smile. Draw a smile is now a registered charity raising thousands of pounds week by week by the invaluable effort of young people in the UK. It aims to do one thing only which is to Draw a Smile onto the faces of orphans worldwide. The majority of the group, self excluded are Egyptian which is why it made sense to start this astronomical task within a country they were familiar with. Draw A Smile now has a sister organisation called aidEGYPT which, of course was fuelled by the protests that started and ended this month.

Last Sunday I had the rare opportunity to attend a Draw A Smile/Aid Egypt function as a guest and experience the impact of the message myself and others strive so hard to deliver; that Together We Can!

The charity Dinner was held at Assaha restaurant renowned for its ambient interior and high standard food although none of the 100+ attendees that Sunday night noticed a bit of it. Along with a fantastic speech given by a young UK Egyptian male that decided to go over during the crisis and see what was going on for himself, was this video made by a fellow DAS member and friend.

It is my pleasure to share it with you all, whom ever may be watching and hope that it breeds the same level of consciousness into you that it did in me.

Allahu Akbar

Words to make you seem smart

I have never understood the real reason for writers/scholars etc to use such In-pronounceable, long-winded, phrasing/wording when such a simpler universal word always seems to exist within its shadow. I seem to find myself reducing paragraphs down to sentences that make far more sense from these convoluted texts;

con-vo-lut-ed

kon-vuh-loo-ted

-adjective

complicated, intricately involved.

My point entirely! why not just say complex? Sure, it could just be my lack in intellectualism and I would accept that if it wasn't for the fact that I KNOW I am not the only one to complain about this!

Yes I am ranting on and yes I love language! But come on, I have 10,000 words to write by the end of 2 months time (shouldn't really be using them all up on here either :/) do you know how much reading that is! Aye-Kerrumba!

So, I am going to build up a little vocab list hoping it will help to make words like convoluted hold the same value in my pea-brain as its counter part 'complicated'.

I guess the best way would be to start it on its own page so as not to disturb any light reading (which is often than not all my blog offers). And please don't judge if my ignorance becomes oh too evident on such a page :s

Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

Came across this after browsing a new blog I'm into http://whatmyworldslike.com/ written by a beautiful inspiring lady. Seen as I haven't heard this since it was released and due to the fact I was allot younger ergo allot more ignorant, it seems as if it is only now that I am able to realise how profound this really is. Enjoy x

Have you got a minute?

From next Monday Londoners will literally be able to sell 'a minute of your time'. So next time an annoying anorak with a servey asks for 'just a minute of your time madame' you can point him in the direction of Brixton market vending machine called Brick Box where he/she will be able to buy a dvd of a minute of your time!

Artist Brian Lobel will be willing and waiting for all those that wish to aid his project of 'Carpe Minuta Prima' (seize the minute) in Brixton market between 10am-6pm, 21st-26 Feb and 4th-10th March @ Brick Box 41 Granville Arcade, SW9 8PS.

NIQABITCH

Once you get over your shock, and you open your mind and drop your own prejudices, I hope that you find this protest to be what it is, a freedom of speech.

These ladies retaliated to the ban on niqab and hijab in France by producing this protest of their own. You may not like it but they certainly have a point.

By mixing the sacred with the profane they illustrate the ridicule we bring ourselves by placing such importance on fabric. Yes! I wear the hijab! but I wear it for my own reasons that are largely assosciated with religious ones but that is neither here nor there. One of the reasons I wear it and keep it is because I feel that I should be free to wear what I want in as much of an abundance as I like or as little for that matter.

Maybe it is the boom of the fashion industry that have ours and other western societies so obsessed with outward appearence, I don't know.

Some people hate these woman for what they did, and I'm sure the majority of which were muslim! can you believe it!!!!!! muslims! like me, asking for the right and freedom to wear what pleases them and yet tearing these women down for exorcising the same right- ok sure they were doing it purely for provocation - but as long as we want freedom of speach then we will have to listen to a whole lot of things that we don't necesarily like or want to hear and we shouldn't complain whilst doing so either.

The message is clear! freedom for all and hipocracy for none, its just a shame that they had to walk in the shoes of those they are trying to reach out to... NO I don't mean muslims, I mean hypocrites.

Think what you will, I commend them and I'm proud to do so

kulu haga

When I'm happy, I am with you,

When I am bored, I seek you out,

When I am tired, I pray for you to visit me in my dreams,

When I'm sad, the sight of you eases me,

When I'm angry, I humble myself for your sake,

When I'm depressed, I long for you,

When I'm confused, you are the one that brings clarity,

When I am worried, you give me that sense of hope,

When I'm lonely, its because you are not there,

When I'm hopefull, its because I saw your smile,

When I'm anxious, its because I can't get enough of you,

When Allah blesses me with so much ability to feel and to know and to have, I wonder at the glory of the mercy of God and how on us he has bestowed his grace.

Friends

Through the years of life, you hear many proverbs and short tales of advise.

'You will be able to count your friends onto 1 hand'

I never really apreciated that saying to it's full, untill slowly, you realise that you no longer seem to be counted on the hands of those friends that may feature on yours.

Sa3eed

His name was sa3eed, from Ghana and he called out to me with peace. In just 10 minutes he had given me a silent smile that reverberated through my soul and felt like it would last forever.

He wore a tweed flat cap and thread bear finger-less woollen gloves. He presented me with enlarged laminated pictures of his youth his wedding day, his boxing career and an old band poster which had featured in a succession of countries, one of which being Finland where he had learnt a new language and lost a marriage.

He spoke of Ummar the warrior companion and recited Jibra'ils message to the prophet (saaws) in an excitable stammered pattern, contrary to the scholars and their precision. In this broken & almost un-audible sound of his, the Qur'an echoed its original beauty in an un-orthadox way.

I walked away to the sound of his guitar and the strength of his kindness.

This is the power of communication!

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

BE WITH THE REVOLUTION!

consciousness

Watch your thoughts, they become your words.

Watch your words,they become your actions.

Watch your actions,they become your habits.

Watch your habits,they become your character.

Watch your character because it WILL become your destiny.

Came across this in a forward but found it to be quite apt!

Misr - No pretenses

For anyone that has visited Egypt and lived the streets of Cairo, this is for you x

... For all the rest of ya, beautiful honest imagery mashallah

Terms

kenosis |kəˈnōsis|noun(in Christian theology) the renunciation of the divine nature, at least in part, by Christ in the Incarnation.DERIVATIVESkenotic |-ˈnätik| |kəˈnɑdɪk| |kiˈnɑdɪk| |-ˈnɒtɪk| adjectiveORIGIN late 19th cent.: from Greek kenōsis ‘an emptying,’ fromkenoun ‘to empty,’ from kenos ‘empty,’ with biblical allusion (Phil. 2:7) to Greek heauton ekenōse, literally ‘emptied himself.’

What I'm reading... incase anyone cares?

So everyone reads the metro right? That newspaper thats stained in coffee marks re-printed with the sole of a size 9 shoe and almost always harbors an unsavory foreign object between a few of the pages...

...Anyway, I don't, not really, and not for any of the rather valid reasons listed above. I don't read the news because the news depresses me. Sure call me immature, unrealistic or whatever you want but I think I have the right to chose, if I can, to stay away from that which may lull me into the insecure pessimist that runs the rat race of the Western world...... where was I going with this?...

Ahh yeh, So! there is this one section in the Metro that I sometimes bravely flip through to. The section that has the list of most played music from some 'b listers' ipod which I thought would be better if it was of their books then I wouldn't have to frantically flip through that dangerous collection of depressive stories. So incase there's anyone out there who like me doesn't want to subject themselves to light torture or be sucked in by the humm-drum of the news in every start of their day then here is my list of what I'm reading. O.K! I'm not Richard or Judy or a 'B, C, D or even D list celebrity' but I'm hard to please in terms of reading.

So here they are, in no particular order:

1. 'To Kill a Mockingbird', Harper Lee.
2. 'The Zahir', Paulo Coelho.
3. 'The Glorious Qur'an', Tajweed.
4. 'The Cairo Trilogy', Naguib Mahfouz.
5. 'Christian Theology', Alistair McGath.
6. 'Judaism', Nicholas DeLange.

Key differences between Indian religions and Abrahamic faith: Challenges to the concept of the 'religion' paradigm.

This article was written as an assignment for the degree of 'Theology and Religious studies' By me, Jessi Walker.

All religion is centralized around the idea of ‘human condition’. This is where we see key differences distinctive between Abrahamic faiths and those of India, most importantly the views of human condition through observation of human place in time. Time within Abrahamic faiths is a linear one. Each of us has one beginning, a fixed period of existence with an end and an eternal future that is fixed. In comparison Indian faiths such as Hinduism and Buddhism have a cyclical view on time. The human condition for Hinduism and Buddhism is a continual one, which is eternal with multiple beginnings and endings. This is best illustrated in the Buddhist ‘Wheel of life’.

In both Indian faiths, Hinduism and Buddhism there is one ultimate goal of extinction; to end the cycle of rebirth through breaking the chains of time; Samsara. They differ in their view of the path to do so and theistic Hinduism is similar to the Abrahamic faiths in the fact that they feel their salvation is best sought after through the pleasing of a personal God(s)/Goddess.

Religion as a term for doctrines of Indian faiths can be a label wrongly used. As Hinduism doesn’t hold any core characteristics that we can measure by and even using the term Hinduism as a blanket term for the ideas found within it can be suffocating and oppressive to its diversity, imposing the conformity of Western religion. Similarly for Buddhism, Indian religions challenge the way we think about the constitution of religion although in a different light in the fact that it is the vacancy of a God/Gods and is replaced with a concentration of the teachings of an enlightened human. This causes us to re-evaluate it as a religion and can be viewed as a school of philosophy/psychology? The distinctions of which are questioned.

Teaching children the Qur'an

Mesbah is a Canadian muslim who simply loves Islam photography and lego. This is an excerpt from her blog www.readwithmeaning.wordpress.com

Surah Al-Ikhlas

Attention!

'The average man can't prove of most of the things that he chooses to speak of
And still won't research and find out the root of the truth that you seek of...'

Pygmalion effect

The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, often children or students and employees, the better they perform.

ALL WELCOME

As a Buddhist Christian:

the misappropriation of

Iris Murdoch

Wednesday January 12^th, at 5.p.m.

Convent Parlour

Refreshments will be served

Digby Stuart Research Centre for Catholic Studies

Roehampton University

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM JESSI X