I can’t believe I didn’t know about this site until I saw a post about it in io9.

Another thing I can’t believe – that I’ve never Dune before. I dug out my brother’s Dune books from the garage yesterday and plan on reading the first one on the plane.

Side Note – It took me ages to find the first Dune book among all of my brother’s books in the garage. I was digging through the multitude of sci fi books (Star Trek, Isaac Asimov stuff, etc.etc.) and every time I thought I found Dune, it turned out to be one of the 50 prequels or sequels. I finally found it after wading through books and dust and then asked my brother why he didn’t have the foresight to put all the Dune books in one place. Because, I don’t know, that would have made things slightly more organized?!

Actually, while trying to find Dune, I found a few other books of his that I didn’t know he had or maybe I wasn’t interested in before, like Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. I’ve never read anything by him and have wanted to for a while now.

So that means that while I’m still really stressed about all the stuff I need to do before England, I already have my plane reading material – Dune and The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, which I picked up last week. At least I have that taken care of. Now for everything else. . .

Last Friday, I conducted a presentation at a class at San Jose State with a few other people on behalf of the media committee I belong to. We first did our presentation, which lasted a half hour, and then the class broke off into groups with one member representing the committee in each group. The purpose of this was to answer any questions a student may have either about Islam, the media, or both. This segment last about an hour. I didn’t know that we would do this (break off into groups) but it turned out pretty well.

Anyways, the professor sent an email to one member of our committee to thank him and all of us for taking the time out to go to the class. Here’s what she said about me: “Bushra really helped the girls in the class understand things from a woman’s perspective and she’s such an open person.” That meant a lot. I wasn’t sure if I was just babbling when those girls asked me their questions but I guess it all worked out.

Muslims prefer a democracy? They condemn the acts of 9/11?? Get out!

The Gallup polling agency released the results of a survey that began soon after the events of 9/11 to determine what the heck it is that those crazy Moslems think.

They surveyed about 50,000 Muslims from 35 countries and found that the religion of Islam did not actually fuel terrorism:

“Religion is an important part of life for the overwhelming majority of Muslims, and if it were indeed the driver for radicalisation, this would be a serious issue.”

But the study, which Gallup says surveyed a sample equivalent to 90 percent of the world’s Muslims, showed that widespread religiosity “does not translate into widespread support for terrorism,” said Mogahed, director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

Not only that, but Gallup found that the majority of Muslims favored a democracy. . . just as long as it wasn’t imposed on them by an outside force.

Article here – Major survey challenges Western perceptions of Islam