Zen Pencils and Strong Images

Today I have been overwhelmed by the fine work coming from another blog.

Gavin Aung Than, also based out of Melbourne, is a cartoonist that has an excellent site. Famous quotes and poems are attached to really intelligent and thought-provoking comics. The archive for his site is here:

http://zenpencils.com/archives/

Some of my favourites include comics attuned to the words of Bruce Lee, Churchill and Carlin.

The most touching though, was this one:

http://zenpencils.com/comic/104-malala-yousafzai-i-have-the-right/

French Earl Grey from Mt Dandenong

My latest and newest tea was a French Earl Grey. It comes with "hibiscus flowers, sunflowers and rose petals". Not a normal tea for me, this had the most excellent aroma. The whole house was more pleasant to be in while the tea was steeped.

It comes from tealeaves.com.au, a shop up on Mt. Dandenong, not that far from Melbourne. The small pack will easily give 15 cups of tea.

Now on the taste, it was not the best tea I had ever tasted. It was not greatly strong or distinctive, this is a tea imbibed for the smell. It was calming, it did feel "healthy", it is probably incredibly good for you, but it didn't have an excellent taste.

It was served without honey, but would benefit from a medium strength light honey. Too thick and the taste would be knocked out entirely, but you do not have to fear about destroying the smell, that is strong and will persist whatever you add to it.

So it is a joy to brew, but not exiting to drink.

Have a great day.

On The Many Names in Academia, For One Thing

'This is what medieval theologians called Vahdat dar Takassur (Unity in Diversity). Seh nagardad barisham ar ou ra parnian khanish ya harir-o-parand, says the great Persian poet Hatif Isfahani (d. 1783), “Silk will not become three different things, if you were to call it parnian, harir, or parand” (three Persian words for “silk”).'

-Hamid Dabashi (2008: 258).

Intellectuals can make three or a thousand names for one thing, but that does not change what the thing truly is, only what it denotes for us. The many names are constructions grasping to assign meaning. A desperate endeavour carried out by all societies. The things remains, regardless of what chatter says about it. The truth of a matter should be more important than our labels (is this the yearning for facts?), but on anything discussed seriously,  people find themselves in a game of ever-changing names and definitions, a circling joust of competing labels.

I study Islamism, and the subjects of this topic go by many names: jihadists, jihadis, Islamic revivalists, Islamic radicals, radical conservatives, nativists, religio-ethnic nationalists, fundamentalists, theocrats, anti-moderns. The writers can't seem to help but proliferate multiple names for a single thing. Here the naming labels emphasise the different aspects of the Islamist, and betray how they are seen and identified by the name-giver. The name denotes what theories will be use to explain the subject, what intellectual direction they come from, and where emphasis will be placed e.g. as anti-moderns, jihadists, theocrats, nativists or conservatives.

It was wonderful to share this quote with you; now back to editing for me. This will require some tea.


Note: I have serious reservations with Dabashi's text, his vilification of Ayaan Hirsi Ali for one; but this was a quote worth drawing out.