…with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Sound familiar? Well, it does include the title of my blog! But in itself it is also a fantastic description of a beautifully imagined place where girls have kaleidoscope eyes and taxis are made out of newspaper.
Sometimes it is wonderful to let your mind wander, to imagine a fantasy land in which you are floating through the sky without a care in the world.
Here the weather is so dull and gray today, even though it should be the height of summer. Sometimes when the weather gets like this in England it’s hard to imagine when it has ever been sunny. It is easy to let days like this get you down, cooped up inside, dressing almost as though it’s winter (though not quite as cold).
The product of others’ imagination is able to give us that boost we need on days like today. Being creative [...]

On this day (well, a Wednesday, rather than a Saturday), a year short of two dozen decades ago, some three dozen Spanish soldiers clad in leather jackets dismounted their new-fangled horses in the parking lot of La Playita Seafood Restaurant, at the southern edge of Lincoln Heights; and seven or eight Tongva “heathen” crossed North Broadway Boulevard to greet them.
Because La Playita was not due to open for another two hundred years, the welcoming party brought the visitors refreshments - hand-woven baskets of pinole and carved-out gourds filled with water mixed with acorn powder – which they exchanged for Spanish thank-you gifts of tobacco and costume jewelry.
All along the Spaniards’ march north from Baja, their spiritual guide and chief diarist, Franciscan friar Juan Crespi, had christened practically every significant piece of Alta California geography with the names of God’s elect - a pond for St. Elmo, a river for San Dionisio, a marsh for St. Isabel [...]

On this day (well, a Wednesday, rather than a Saturday), a year short of two dozen decades ago, some three dozen Spanish soldiers clad in leather jackets dismounted their new-fangled horses in the parking lot of La Playita Seafood Restaurant, at the southern edge of Lincoln Heights; and seven or eight Tongva “heathen” crossed North Broadway Boulevard to greet them.
Because La Playita was not due to open for another two hundred years, the welcoming party brought the visitors refreshments - hand-woven baskets of pinole and carved-out gourds filled with water mixed with acorn powder – which they exchanged for Spanish thank-you gifts of tobacco and costume jewelry.
All along the Spaniards’ march north from Baja, their spiritual guide and chief diarist, Franciscan friar Juan Crespi, had christened practically every significant piece of Alta California geography with the names of God’s elect - a pond for St. Elmo, a river for San Dionisio, a marsh for St. Isabel [...]

On this day (well, a Wednesday, rather than a Saturday), a year short of two dozen decades ago, some three dozen Spanish soldiers clad in leather jackets dismounted their new-fangled horses in the parking lot of La Playita Seafood Restaurant, at the southern edge of Lincoln Heights; and seven or eight Tongva “heathen” crossed North Broadway Boulevard to greet them.
Because La Playita was not due to open for another two hundred years, the welcoming party brought the visitors refreshments - hand-woven baskets of pinole and carved-out gourds filled with water mixed with acorn powder – which they exchanged for Spanish thank-you gifts of tobacco and costume jewelry.
All along the Spaniards’ march north from Baja, their spiritual guide and chief diarist, Franciscan friar Juan Crespi, had christened practically every significant piece of Alta California geography with the names of God’s elect - a pond for St. Elmo, a river for San Dionisio, a marsh for St. Isabel [...]

Assalamualaikum.
Terlebih dahulu, ketepikan sentimen politik anda jika mahu membaca entri pendek ini. Bagi aku, banyak perkara yang boleh kita pelajari daripada jemaah Islam tertua di Malaysia ini.
Sesiapa yang masih belum membaca kisah lelaki berbaju pagoda ini, silakanlah baca. Yang mahu aku highlight di sini bukanlah kisah lelaki berbaju pagoda itu, tapi semangat tolong menolong sesama ahli jemaah mereka walaupun tak saling mengenali.Tak mungkin ia tercapai tanpa rasa ‘belonging’ yang sangat tinggi kepada jemaah dan koordinasi yang mantap sesama ahli. Dan agak sukar bagi ia untuk dicapai dalam sesebuah organisasi yang baru setahun dua bergiat aktif.
Malah, semangat ini bagi aku sangat sukar diperolehi dalam sesebuah organisasi korporat. Mana tidaknya, pada zaman sekarang ini bukannya mudah mendapat perkhidmatan percuma. Semuanya mahu dikomersilkan. Masuk tandas pun kena bayar dua puluh sen…
Cerita ini menguatkan lagi hujah Dr Farish Noor dalam bukunya Islam Embedded mengenai keistimewaan PAS sebagai jemaah paling tua di Malaysia. Menurut [...]

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”  Groucho Marx, Humorist, Recalled on his death, 8/19/1977.

On drug abuse, the allegation that marijuana leads to heroin addiction is as illogical as beer leads to alcoholism.  The “War of Drugs” is a failure, as was Prohibition nearly a century ago, and for the same reasons.  A better idea would be to decriminalize drugs and empty our prisons of pot smokers.

On immigration, somehow, a “Great Wall of America” along our southern border is wrong.  A better idea would be to enforce the laws already enacted.

So many issues.  So many false solutions.  If only our politicians would stop bloviating and start listening to us.