inkbluesky

ayers rock australia. also known as Uluru, a sacred site for Aborigines.

Let Me Tell You About My Brother…

Let me tell you about my brother. As the blogosphere was aflame with intense speculation (and it was just that: speculation) about Cho Sueng-Hui’s possible connection to “Islamic terrorism” because of the words “Ismael Ax” tattooed on his arm, the Virginia Tech Muslim community was mourning the death of one of their brightest stars.

Waleed Shaalan, 32, was a graduate student in the Civil Engineering Department at Virginia Tech. He first came to VT in August 2006 from northern Egypt. He took on an assistantship position, choosing to leave his Ph.D. track which he started in Egypt. He was known for “his broad smile and wave that he gave everyone.”

[ ]…Mr. Shaalan was badly wounded and lay beside the other student, who was not shot but played dead, as the gunman returned two times searching for signs of life. Just as the gunman noticed the student, Mr. Shaalan made a move to distract him, at which point he was shot a second time and died. The student believed that Mr. Shaalan purposefully distracted the shooter to save him, Mr. Dymond said.

There is plenty of real evil in the world, more then enough to satisfy those that seem to take a perverse joy in it. Its not necessary to demonize an entire religion of almost a billion people. To constantly try and find some anecdotal example of some violence and then with weird self-satisfaction claim that see they’re all bad. Mr. Shaalan as far as I know hasn’t been mentioned by a single broadcast media outlet - in a world where nothing counts if its not on TV he is truly an unknown, unacknowledged hero.

I was playing around on Wikipedia earlier and found this, Rhodes blood libel

The Rhodes blood libel was an instance of blood libel against Jews in which the Jews of the Ottoman Empire island of Rhodes were accused of the ritual murder of a Christian boy in February 1840.

The libel originated in the Greek Orthodox community and enjoyed active support from the consuls of several European countries, including the United Kingdom, France, the Austrian Empire, Sweden, and Greece. The Ottoman governor of Rhodes broke with the long tradition of the Ottoman governments (which had previously shielded the Jews from blood libel accusations) and supported the ritual murder charge. Several Jews were arrested, some of whom made false confessions under torture, and the entire Jewish quarter was blockaded for twelve days.

The Ottoman sultan finally issued a decree denouncing the blood libel which is a good thing of course, but at that point how do you take back the torture.

aged asian bird print. done with some Photoshop brushes someone sent me made by ChrissyM. She has a page at Deviant Art, but I can’t find these particular Asian print brushes. Maybe if you click over you can find them.