Shamil Basayev is dead. We belong to God and unto Him we return. When Aslan Maskhadov died, I was too choked up to even post about it. That was the end of any hope for Chechnya. Basayev… well, he’s dead now. Don’t speak ill and all that. Still, I’ll point you to what I wrote about him and his “contributions” to the Chechen cause previously.
In a related obituary, Sobaka Magazine has closed down. Now there’s a crying shame.
Pete O'Neal, former Black Panther, is running an orphanage in rural Tanzania and confronting his mortality.
Author and Professor Dr Jamillah Karim spent a year living in Kuala Lumpur. Read this great interview by Sister Brooke, and then visit Dr Jamillah's blog for a series of thoughtful reflections on what living in Malaysia was like for her as an African American Muslim, what insights she gained about the immigrant Muslim experience in America and more.
Granfalloon (n) : "A proud and meaningless association of human beings." A word coined by Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) in his book Cat's Cradle. I was recalling the concept recently for some reason but couldn't bring the term to mind. There it is: A granfalloon. The idea is illustrated in the book by a woman from Indiana who is just thrilled to meet Hoosiers everywhere she goes, a Hoosier being a name for people from the state of Indiana, but the shared qualities she recognizes in Hoosiers exists only in her own mind. Thanks, Kurt.
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