veiled4allah

another year older...

... but fortunately not in debt, al-hamdulillah. I turned 31 today :)

life and stuff

Sorry for not posting much lately. I'll try to keep posting something new every few days or so, inshallah. Nothing really important happening, just keeping myself busy with life offline. Earlier this week, I bought a book called "The Music of the Primes" by Marcus du Sautoy, which is a history of how mathematicians have understood prime numbers. I may be a paralegal now, but I got my bachelor's degree in physics way back when (is it already nine years ago?) and I still enjoy reading about science and math. Plus, prime numbers are used in all sorts of cool things like cryptography :)

happy birthday, Dad

:)

happy birthday, Mom

:)

keeping busy

Since I'm working from home and it's only part time, I've decided to do a little volunteer work one day a week to get out of the apartment. I'm going in to the City of Covington (it's about fifteen minutes from where I live) to talk to them about a volunteer office position. It's nothing exciting, probably mostly filing, but something to keep myself occupied with and help out the community in a tiny way.

busy

Sorry for not posting anything for a couple of days. I'm getting settled in with my new work for Solidarity USA, and also busy preparing for a series of local events. On Saturday, the local chapters of CAIR and ADC are hosting a community banquet as an "election education event" for Muslims and Arab-Americans to learn about the Washington state caucuses. I'll be tabling for Kucinich as well as attending for my own benefit. Sunday is Eid al-Adha. And next Wednesday and Thursday, Kucinich will be in Seattle. He'll be meeting with the Muslim community on Wednesday.

more good news

Newsday reports:

A federal judge has ruled that a section of the USA Patriot Act is unconstitutional, the first time any part of the sweeping 2001 anti-terrorism measure championed by the White House has been struck down. U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins ruled that a measure of the act that bars giving "expert advice or assistance" to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations is too vague, threatening First and Fifth Amendment rights. The judge's ruling said the law, as written, does not differentiate between impermissible advice on violence and encouraging the use of peaceful, nonviolent means to achieve goals. "The USA Patriot Act places no limitation on the type of expert advice and assistance which is prohibited and instead bans the provision of all expert advice and assistance regardless of its nature," the judge said.

an opportunity, inshallah

I have a lead on a part-time job that might bring in a little money, inshallah. I would be working from home helping to write news releases for Solidarity USA, a civil rights advocacy group that focuses on Muslim issues. I submitted a sample today based on this news story about David Hicks, an Australian-born detainee at Guantanamo. Hopefully, Solidarity USA will like my work, inshallah. I've posted my sample news release text in the extended entry. Update: My sample text forms the basis of the final press release from Solidarity USA but you can see that a lot of additional detail has been included that I didn't have access to. Still, it's a start.

anniversaries

Congratulations to Jonathan Edelstein, who is celebrating his first blogiversary. And to Zack Ajmal who is celebrating nine years of marriage to his wife Amber. :invasion:

busy week

Except for taking Saturday off (see my Ramadan Journal entry about sleeping), I've been pretty busy the last few days with a little offline activist work. This coming week, I'm attending a meeting of my legislative district Democrats on Wednesday evening and a MeetUp for my favorite presidential candidate on Thursday evening, then on Friday afternoon said presidential candidate will be holding a rally and giving a speech at the University of Washington that I plan to attend, inshallah. Oh, and tomorrow is election day. If you're in Washington state, please vote NO on Initiative 841, which would strike down workplace ergonomic regulations and make it very difficult to reinstate them. This initiative is like a textbook example of corporatist dirty politics. Don't fall for it.