If you don’t get the joke, please find a teenager and have them explain it to you. Or you might try this one on for size:
Who said Jihad can’t be fun?
On a more serious note:
Radical Muslims
4
Monthly Archives: February 2009
BahaiResearch.com – New & Improved
Usually when I’m looking up for a specific quote or topic within the Baha’i writings I head to the “official” Reference Library at the world center. But there’s a new and improved website called BahaiResearch.com that has the same content, as well as writings from other religions and periphery content such as memoirs, pilgrims notes, etc.
Although the site is the work of Ian Vink and Runa Ali, it is hosted by USBNC.ORG (US Baha’i National Center web servers). And still the site is way too slow. Speed is extremely important for a search engine as it improves productivity and frequency of use.
It also supports 14 languages in total: most romance languages, Arabic, Persian, Chinese, Japanese and more. As well, new documents are being continuously added. The best part is that it features boolean searches. This means you can use OR AND NOT to zero in on what you want.
You can even download the whole thing and work offline. And we are told that there are “widgets” coming that would enable you to embed it on your website to allow people a portal to access it.
You might remember a while back we talked about majnun, a Baha’i search engine which basically filtered the web according to what… we don’t know. While majnun is simply a veiled exercise in censorship, Ian and Runa’s project is about disseminating knowledge openly.
BahaiResearch.com reminds me of Ocean, another similar tool (but it is only downloadable and has no online feature).
So take BahaiResearch.com for a spin and let Ian know what you think. He’s done a great job of not only designing a very easy to use application but one that has some real practical value.
Roger White: Applesauce
Perhaps my favourite poem by Roger White, poet laureate of the Baha’i community:
APPLESAUCE
I tire, Eve, of innocence,
Let’s kiss and grow contented.
Suppose we touched, where I protrude
And you’re cunningly indented?
Oh Adam, what a sweet pastime!
I’m glad that I consented.
Tell me, dear, what shall we call
This game that we’ve invented?
With half my heart I’d call it love
And not have it repented;
The other half would name it sin
And urge it be prevented.
Had I not led you to the fruit
Guilt would be circumvented.
My punishment’s to have my crime
Eternally resented.
Spake the snake:
All Adam’s sons are cursed to woo
A maid and gently take her;
But after they’ve made applesauce
They’ll like as not forsake her.
And down the centuries men proclaim:
We’ll take the pleasure, she the blame.
Let posterity lament
That mother Eve gave her assent;
In slithering wisdom I rejoice
That she gave birth to slippery choice.
Adam & Eve by Titian (Prado Museum)
Roger White believed committed artists would be a vital force in preventing inflexibility in the Bahá’í community. “They will,” he predicted, addressing a group of Bahá’í youth in Haifa in 1990, “be a source of rejuvenation. They will serve as a bulwark against fundamentalism, stagnation and administrative sterility…To the degree the Bahá’í community views its artists as a gift rather than a problem will it witness the spread of the faith ‘like wildfire’ as promised by Shoghi Effendi, through their talents being harnessed to the dissemination of the spirit of the Cause.” To this end, White encouraged hundreds of budding writers and artists around the world, and called upon Bahá’í communities to assist the artists to find their place.