I started blogging a few years ago and I’ve enjoyed it tremendously. For a few reasons, though, I’ve decided to retire this blog. Continue reading…

There’s been a really funky smell in the staircase leading up to my apartment for a few days. I’m on the third floor, right by the stairs. On my way up, for the past few days or so, I’ve noticed a really God-awful stench coming from the second floor. Continue reading…

Every time Pixar comes out with a new movie, it only re-confirms what I learned from their previous one: that Pixar is the only film studio out there that knows how to make magic. They’re doing today what Walt Disney did in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. WALL-E might be their most innocent and, ironically, most cerebral film to date. Continue reading…

We’ve got this book floating around the office, and now it’s been reviewed in Salon, called Muhajababes, the so-called “young, devout and sexy” generation of Muslims and/or Arabs (’cause it’s all the same anyway…).

Sigh. I’m surprised by how “new” this is made to sound to American ears. Just take a walk down the streets of downtown Montreal any day of the week and you’d see the reality of this, how old this is. (I’d wager the same is true in Toronto.) I really lament how segregated things are in the U.S. Not just on the streets, but in the thoughts, and especially in the reporting. Maybe it’s just the Twin Cities. I sometimes feel like we ought to be producing our program in Chicago or New York—somewhere way more diverse. Lack of diversity affects us in subtle ways, I’m sure. (Yeah, yeah, the whole Montreal-is-the-greatest-damn-city-ever tune is getting old, too.)

The trophy stays at work, but I get to take this sweet award certificate home. “Just what I always wanted. I will name him George, and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him…” Much thanks to the Almighty, my parents, and my inspiring colleagues.

I finally got around to seeing this 2003 French movie Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran [”Mr. Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Qur’an”]. It’s such a beautifully tender story about a teenage boy befriending a shopkeeper in inner-city Paris. It’s so right where I’m at right now. It’s human, real, and apolitical, thank God. The title character, Mr. Ibrahim, is played by the awesome Omar Sharif. Damn, dude rocks, even as old as he is in the movie. I’m going to have to watch Doctor Zhivago again…

The new Boston Globe photoblog The Big Picture has taken the Web by storm since its debut on June 1. The blogger behind it, Alan Taylor, speaks here.

And how Google is beating newspapers at delivering pertinent information.

Interesting follow-up to my last post: this commentary in The Guardian.

Analysts who emphasise “al-Qaida as ideology” tend to be from the left and their analysis is thus in keeping with an approach which favours broad historical trends, stresses political, economic and social factors and minimises the effects of personal agency in explaining historical events. Right-wingers tend to favour the analyses of al-Qaida that emphasise individual actions and direction from above, whether that be “brainwashing” or the effect of charismatic leaders. Again, this mirrors a historical approach too. The latter view is usually prevalent in counter-terrorist and intelligence institutions – never known as bastions of a social science approach to conflict resolution.

A great article in The New Yorker explores how one of the most influential terrorist thinkers undermines almost every single basis for al Qaeda’s militancy, and how the “intellectual” leaders of al Qaeda struggled to respond to his criticisms. The article takes a little while to get going but, midway through, it really takes off.

I’m now using Twitter, the micro-blogging service. You can keep track of what I’m doing and what I’m up to (you can also subscribe to my Twitter feed). As you may have noticed, I’ve been blogging less, what with my job contentment and my spare writing time devoted to my novel.