more "dumb book" reading, but first...
well, i guess this sort of touches on dumb book reading too... i meant to blog yesterday about an npr program i heard tuesday about guantanamo bay (click on Guantanamo library report)... specifically, about the library of books available to detainees there. the first three titles they mentioned in the program? lord of the rings, chronicles of narnia... and some danielle steele. (i'm sorry... can you picture some young bearded brother wasting away in this facility spending his free time reading danielle steele in pushto??)
now, i'd be the last one to knock LOTR or narnia - though i will note that i did an entire master's dissertation on how those are christian works - but come on!! and then the program also noted that one of the most popular sets of books are the harry potter books. i wonder how true that is... though again, i won't knock'em... but i imagine most of these guys would prefer to read some religious books, and i imagine their captors feel it is their duty to withhold just such books. the program mentioned that they do have works from some leading major scholars, but don't mention any by name... i can imagine how carefully vetted and censored they might be. (i imagine, i imagine, i imagine, because i can't know for sure, because it's all under a blackout...)
but what really pissed me off was the librarian, who, when questioned about the lack of law books, said, well, they don't need law books, because we have a right to be detaining them here... the nerve!!! such a library is the perfect opportunity to further cage the minds of people who have already endured over four years of being caged in body... well, the one thing they can't take away is the qur'an, whatever they might do to it.
anyway... my next book off the dumb shelves was a tami hoag thriller, and - i'll admit - the last book was a dean koontz thriller, and tami hoag is a muuuch better writer than dean koontz. anyway, the book is about a child abduction. MAN, this stuff hits home so much harder when you have a child. it felt as real as reading a newspaper article... more so because it actually entered into the minds of the parents whose child had been taken from them. part of me didn't even want to read it... but think about how many hundreds of thousands of kids go missing each year, how many parents actually do endure this nightmare. this link to the national center for missing and exploited children gives some statistics, information and links to more... the vast majority of the cases are runaways and family abductions (which tells us something about the state of the family) but there are still plenty left that fall in the category of "nonfamily" abductions - "only" about 100 of which include kids found murdered - may Allah protect all of us from every suffering this torment. tami hoag describes it as a dismemberment of the soul... i can only imagine, i don't want to imagine. i want my musa with me always, my precious, precious baby - i couldn't endure even a second of not knowing where he was, if he was scared, if he was being hurt. i am SO THANKFUL for the security of our lives each day. (God, "security" is such a loaded word these days...argh!)
anyway, just had to get that out... I LOVE MY MUSA!!!!
my musa is awake now and getting a little whiny. must figure out how to do laundry and keep him amused at the same time...
now, i'd be the last one to knock LOTR or narnia - though i will note that i did an entire master's dissertation on how those are christian works - but come on!! and then the program also noted that one of the most popular sets of books are the harry potter books. i wonder how true that is... though again, i won't knock'em... but i imagine most of these guys would prefer to read some religious books, and i imagine their captors feel it is their duty to withhold just such books. the program mentioned that they do have works from some leading major scholars, but don't mention any by name... i can imagine how carefully vetted and censored they might be. (i imagine, i imagine, i imagine, because i can't know for sure, because it's all under a blackout...)
but what really pissed me off was the librarian, who, when questioned about the lack of law books, said, well, they don't need law books, because we have a right to be detaining them here... the nerve!!! such a library is the perfect opportunity to further cage the minds of people who have already endured over four years of being caged in body... well, the one thing they can't take away is the qur'an, whatever they might do to it.
anyway... my next book off the dumb shelves was a tami hoag thriller, and - i'll admit - the last book was a dean koontz thriller, and tami hoag is a muuuch better writer than dean koontz. anyway, the book is about a child abduction. MAN, this stuff hits home so much harder when you have a child. it felt as real as reading a newspaper article... more so because it actually entered into the minds of the parents whose child had been taken from them. part of me didn't even want to read it... but think about how many hundreds of thousands of kids go missing each year, how many parents actually do endure this nightmare. this link to the national center for missing and exploited children gives some statistics, information and links to more... the vast majority of the cases are runaways and family abductions (which tells us something about the state of the family) but there are still plenty left that fall in the category of "nonfamily" abductions - "only" about 100 of which include kids found murdered - may Allah protect all of us from every suffering this torment. tami hoag describes it as a dismemberment of the soul... i can only imagine, i don't want to imagine. i want my musa with me always, my precious, precious baby - i couldn't endure even a second of not knowing where he was, if he was scared, if he was being hurt. i am SO THANKFUL for the security of our lives each day. (God, "security" is such a loaded word these days...argh!)
anyway, just had to get that out... I LOVE MY MUSA!!!!
my musa is awake now and getting a little whiny. must figure out how to do laundry and keep him amused at the same time...
posted by Ayesha | 12:44 PM
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