I purchased three new books today,
America’s Secret War by George Friedman, of which I have already read most of, but just never have owned a copy of my own. Friedman is the found of Stratfor (for Strategic Forecasting), a quasi, shadow CIA in the private sector. The website, Stratfor.com, is a great resource. To get full access, there’s a steep subscription fee of $40, but the free stuff that is there is definitely worth a peek. Keep this place in mind, because they are very important, will continue to be very important. They also have free podcasts, so go subscribe. It’ll be worth your while.

Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks, another book that I have already read a part of. It’s a good introduction to the debates about/amongst Muslim women for those unfamiliar with the issues, but is by no means conclusive. If you want to get to the heart of the matter, frankly you must read from Muslim feminists themselves, works that have been very underrepresented in terms of being translated and published here.

Scheherazade Goes West by Fatema Mernissi. I just finished reading Mernissi’s book Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood, and absolutely fell in love with it. Review to follow on that book as well. I read it for my Muslim Women class and to find something by the same author got me quite excited.

Anyway, I’ll review all of these books later. I was tempted to buy so much more, but, being a poor college student and all, I restrained myself. I suppose that’s why I love blogs and free internet here on campus, new media makes it so that I am never running out of things to read!

Right on the money.

An intriguing essay on Ayn Rand.

John Arquilla.

I found this rather uplifting.  Of course, the venerable Instapundit already linked to it, but I found this particular section to be of interest:

“Yesterday the “popular support” committee headed by Ahmed Chalabi succeeded in reopening a Sunni mosque in Sadr city, returning control of the mosque to the Sunni endowment department after it was occupied by Sadr’s office personnel last year. The mosque was reopened with a celebration where Sunnis and Shia prayed together behind a Sunni cleric. Before the ceremony Shia volunteers cleaned up the area around the mosque from garbage and fixed the sign that carried the name of the mosque.“

Of course, Fahdil aptly (well, in my own cynical opinion) notes that the politicians are merely trying to salvage their own punctured reputations (and whose has more holes in it than Chalabi’s?), but he believes that the hearts of the people are sincere.  So do I.

Once again, progress that once more goes unnoticed by the MSM.  Sorry, I can’t help but state the obvious.

A new military command for Africa.  About damn time, too.  Just as the article says, it’s becoming a more and more important region.  They’re keeping Egypt as part of CENTCOM as part of the Middle East, but frankly…  Though I think the rest of Africa should be unified into one command, instead of split between USPACOM, CENTCOM, and EUCOM, I still believe that other nations considered part of the Middle East, such as Morrocco and Tunisia, should remain a part of CENTCOM as well as Egypt.

Ryan Henry said that the Bush administration believed Africa needed more attention.  Understatement of the year, perhaps, but I guess forming a seperate command for Africa is a start.

Hopefully this will lead to good things for Darfur?