Amanda, I think that your first comment perhaps is the reason for your sullied reputation. Also I think that you must post a great deal in order to increase this reputation. I am not sure if I can make any claims with regard to social history except to say that Sufism also was used as tool for normativizing, thus limiting the acceptable choices of everyday folks who did not wish to be seen as heterodox or deviant in their practice. This is ironic since so many Salafi-types now decry Sufism as bid'a. I am not sure that this is not boring though.

So very happy to hear updates about you directly from you! I hope you enjoy your refugee status. Big kisses. Mo

Thank you, Linda. I miss David a great deal. He was a great advisor and a tremendous friend and it is always nice to hear from people who knew him before I did. Here\'s to him.

I didn't mean that I would only live _until_ 42, love. 42 is just the age that I think that I will feel most at home in. I damn well hope I live three times that long.

Moreover, Adam, kids before the present (in my limited-term experience) were frivolous and stupid. However, I think that this is the fault of their parents and their surrounding cultural context as well, since most everyone--apparently--would rather revert to childhood than deal with the trouble of being an adult.

Not me. I am shooting for 42.

I love being an adult. I love the freedom of choices I have. I want to go to Spain? I go to Spain (given that I can afford it). It pairs freedom with responsibility. Putting things in the right places so that other things can come out of it. It is brilliant.

So, in the mean time, the rest of the big children can go back to watching on TV manboys half their age play games with inflated objects that they wish that they had played when they were half their age and I will go on doing exactly what I always wanted to do.

"...she seems to bring out the absolute worst in Americans." Amen, brother.

You are right about the death rattle. I'm just being optimistic. It just seems to me that the dumbing of American politics is progressing ever more rapidly as it is fed by near-instantaneous misinformation and punditry.