It’s all in the Game

Brilliant dialogue from the TV series The Wire, between Omar Little, a rip and runner (one who robs drug dealers) and Maurice Levy, defence lawyer for a man involved with a drug gang, on trial for murdering a witness.  Omar is giving witness against the defence lawyer’s client.   Shows the moral ambiguity of defence lawyers.

Omar Little: That wasn’t no attempt murder.
Maurice ‘Maury’ Levy: What was it, Mr. Little?
Omar Little: I shot the boy Mike-Mike in his hind parts, that all.
[Jury laughs]
Omar Little: Fixed it up so he couldn’t sit right.
[Judge chuckles]
Maurice ‘Maury’ Levy:  Why’d you shoot Mike-Mike in his, um, hind parts, Mr. Little?
Omar Little: Let’s say we had a disagreement.
Maurice ‘Maury’ Levy:  A disagreement over?
Omar Little: Well, you see, Mike-Mike thought he should keep that cocaine he was slingin’ and the money he was makin’ from slingin’ it. I thought otherwise.
Maurice ‘Maury’ Levy:  Why should we believe your testimony then? Why believe anything you say?
Omar Little: That’s up to y’all, really.
Maurice ‘Maury’ Levy:  You are feeding off the violence and the despair of the drug trade. You are stealing from those who themselves are stealing the lifeblood from our city. You are a parasite who leeches off the culture of drugs…
Omar Little: Just like you, man.
Maurice ‘Maury’ Levy:  Excuse me? What?
Omar Little: I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It’s all in the game though, right?

Da’wah and Building Bridges

Every other week I get an article or rant as he calls it by an Italian Priest Father Frank Gelli. I met him at an Arabic course, he’s a really nice dude this priest. He does a lot of interfaith work with Muslims and is sympathetic to the problems Muslims face around the world. Someone who is actively building bridges with the Muslim world.

He meets a lot of Muslims in his travels and comes across our good and bad characteristics. He loves how Muslims still have a daily connection to God in the prayer and in our language, always saying insha Allah, alhmadulillah etc. He loves the beautiful recitation of the Quran by our Qaris, infact one of the reasons he was learning Arabic was to be able to recite the Quran like them!

He commented on the generosity of Muslims, particularly a brother in the class who always had incredible adab and courtesy. He also got to see the ugly side of a fellow classmate who nearly got into a fight with another Muslim classmate and even made racist comments. Two of us and the Priest got between them trying to calm them down, we couldn’t help but feel embarassed at the situation, there were other non-Muslims in the class as well, this is the da’wah we were giving?

In this article the Priest tells of his experience on an Arab interfaith TV programme, he encounters another all too familiar ugly side of us - the paranoid mentality of

Musings on Modern Art Scene

There was a programme on the other night about modern-art collectors and the rise in investment in modern art.

It showed how investment in Art has skyrocketed due to globalisation and the rise in number of the super wealthy (especially from the former Soviet Union). Collecting Art is the new fad with the wealthy. Investors spending millions on pieces believing the artist will be the new Picasso, but a number of art critics say a lot of these pieces may well be worthless in a few years. They say a lot of these collectors over speculate the value and pieces end up being sold off for far too much than they are worth.

I worked at the Tate Galleries for 2 years whilst studying at Uni, (a year at Tate Britain and a year at Tate Modern). It was an

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf on Interfaith Youth Work

PR (post Ramadan) Initiative

It was inevitable this time would come, the dreaded drop after Ramadan. The wind of the blessed month carries us to such high heights and for a while into the month of Shawwal we’re still riding high, still waking up an hour before fajr, still reading a Juz of Quran a day, still going to the Masjid for Salah… Then slowly you feel the wind leave you, like a glider gradually coming back down to the ground. Waking up for Tahajjud is Mission Impossible now, and if I do wake up I’m more like a character from Dawn of the Dead, straight up Zombie.