Slow news day: Muslim kids and music
I was just listening to the BBC London station (94.9FM) and the top story in their news bulletins at the moment seems to be the fact that some Muslim parents are withdrawing their children...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
Suburban Barclays bank robbed
Yesterday a branch of Barclays bank was robbed near London. It happened in Ashford — not the one in Kent where the Eurostar trains stop, but the quiet suburban sprawl north of Staines which...
WordPress 3.0, and why WordPress stole MT’s thunder
Scott Rosenberg: WordPress – A Key Link in Blogging’s Evolutionary Chain « WordPress.tv This is a 55-minute video about the history of blogging and how websites developed into blogs, which I found linked off...
Juneteenth and Helen Keller: fabricating a controversy
Just over a week ago, the team behind the blog FWD/Forward decided to hold a "blogswarm" dedicated to busting myths about Helen Keller and demonstrating that there was more to her than the "water...
Aung San Suu Kyi and futility
Yesterday, the Guardian printed previously unseen pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi, the one-time Burmese democracy leader, at various points both in Asia in her youth and in the UK as a married woman,...
Uniforms more important than school meals?
This morning, I heard an interview with the woman who had stood to be mayor of Newham, the east London borough, in the most recent local elections (the same day as the general election)....
“9/11 a dry run for Tel Aviv ram raid”
The World Turned Upside Down by Melanie Phillips | Digested read | Books | The Guardian This is a pretty hilarious parody of Melanie Phillips's latest book, The World Turned Upside Down. The Guardian's...
Why wouldn’t you want to be autistic?
Last week a number of newspapers reported that scientists were "on track to establish the genetic triggers for autism, paving the way for earlier diagnosis of children who could be at risk of developing...
Me @ MuslimMatters: How should we respond to the EDL?
I wrote an article on the English Defence League, the racist football hooligan gang that holds riotous "demonstrations" against Muslims around the UK, at the request of Amad at MuslimMatters regarding the rise of...
When your cosmetics make others ill
Student kicked out of class because of her hair product? This article got flagged up on Facebook: an African-American schoolgirl was kicked out of class by a white teacher in Seattle because her hair...
Some facts about the Flotilla massacre
In response to the massacre yesterday morning on the Turkish ship that was delivering aid to Gaza, Amad at Muslim Matters has posted an article refuting some of the specious claims by the Israeli...
What part of this is a privilege?
Black Women are Perceived as a Threat (from Womanist Musings) I wrote about the relationship of Muslims to "white privilege" here last May as part of a carnival organised by Brooke of Rolling Ruminations,...
Miss USA, Muslim role models and the state of our blogging community
The last week or so has seen yet another falling-out in the Muslim blogging community after Muslim Matters carried a guest column by a sister who said she couldn't cheer for Rima Fakih, the...
Wakefield, vaccines and ME
Earlier today, Dr Andrew Wakefield, who published a study in the Lancet, a major British medical journal suggesting that the triple vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) might be a cause of autism,...
Israel and old South Africa made ready allies
Today's Guardian had an exclusive story on how South Africa negotiated the purchase of nuclear weapons from Israel in the 1970s, and that there are documents that prove that Israel in fact had the...
Norman Geras demolishes Hitchens on niqab ban (partly)
I was directed by Islamophobia Watch to an article on Normblog taking apart Christopher Hitchen's arguments on the Slate website in favour of banning the niqaab in France and elsewhere. The Belgian parliament has...
White guy threatens to bomb airport, gets slap on wrist, much whingeing ensues
Last week a guy called Paul Chambers was fined a total of £1,000 (all but £385 of which was either costs or a "victim surcharge") for posting a tweet threatening to blow up an...
Guardian on ME and retroviruses, and other press coverage
First of all, this past week has been ME Awareness Week as I mentioned several times in my last article. This fact has got lost in all the election talk as might have been...
Jeremy Vine meets Kay Gilderdale again
This week is ME Awareness Week ([1], [2]), and a number of media appearances and articles have been scheduled, including two appearances from Kay Gilderdale (on Radio 2 today and, allegedly, on GMTV tomorrow...
Why Muslims shouldn’t fear proportional representation
Recently I’ve seen a discussion on Facebook in which one Muslim brother said we should not be so keen on proportional representation because it’s likely to lead to the BNP getting seats, which they...