Age of Persuation

CBC Radio1 had an interesting series about marketing and advertisement world: Age of Persuation (http://www.oreillyradio.com)

Terry O'Reilly presented this very well and that was my must-listen program on the radio.

 

I add an excerpt from the program's blog:

Singapore Airlines, for example, dresses its flight attendants in a special silk made exclusively for the airline. The attendants wear a special frangrance created especially for them, which they also lightly spray onto the hot towels they distribute. The meals are created for the airline by top chefs, and everything the pilots say are scripted for maximum effect.

Mercedes has an entire division dedicated just to the "sound" their car door makes when it closes!

Clearly, advertisers are taking this seriously.

Once I attended a presentation of Mitch Joel (http://www.twistimage.com/blog/) about Personal Branding... thats a powerful concept and is used over the world knowing or not knowing. Better know and make your own brand, then dont know and destroy your brand. Brand is always there.

 

 

 

Storm in Karachi

There was a severe wind and rainstorm in Karachi on June 23rd. Around 200 losses of lives is reported.





The pictures are taken from bbc.co.uk

Check this fateful car on SharaeFaisal (YouTube/1:06 min)

On a lighter note, one of my relatives had chicken house on the rooftop of his building. After the storm, the chicken house (darba) was broken and all the chickens disappeared. Whoever got these chicken flying into their home, they must've had a wholesome meal on this disastorous day!

First Day

 

"This is the First Day for the rest of your life!"

                                                 -unknown

 

JUMP - making Maths easy and fun

Here is a good program for young people to learn Maths.
http://jumpmath.org/

There are resources for parents to start with. Familiarize yourself starting with free downloadable stuff (I am going to do so soon).
Someone willing to start the program in Pakistan?? let me know and I will gather more info for you, inshaAllah.

Related books:

The End of Ignorance by Johm Mighton
Maths prof and playwright.
http://jumpmath.org/about/the-end-of-ignorance

Another book on the same topic from the same author:
The Myth of Ability
http://jumpmath.org/about/myth-of-ability

Book: The Power of Intention

 This week I was able to finish a book that I started almost a month ago.

The Power of Intention – Learning to Co-Create Your World Your Way by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

My friend and colleague, Ashraf Gaffar, gave me this book. When I started it, it felt like the same Mumbo Jumbo that you see in the inspirational content industry. But after I was past the first chapter, it started grabbing my interest.

 

The author appears on TV and I have seen him several times, but never took it seriously. The book is written in a way that it could cover any religious belief (or non-belief). However, when I was reading the book, it seemed that he has translated The Quran or several Hadith there. On every page I was reading, I was remembered of some verses from Quran or some parts of Hadith. Most of his ideas are in line with the Islamic values system. This made this book so special to me and its suggestions so practical to apply in daily life.
 

One thing this book's Muslim readers should be careful about is his belief in pan-theism. He refers to it many times (not using these exact words, of course) and I had to filter-out or translate into compatible ideas  for  myself. So if you read this book, please make sure what pantheism is all about, what the correct belief is (and its contrast, which is thin, with the Islamic theological discourse of Wahdat-al-Wujood), and how to identify it. Once you have the right concepts, this book is wonderful to read and apply.
 

Happy Reading!

Putsch

Learned a new word today from Abdelhamid (colleague/friend)

 

Definitions of putsch on the Web:

• coup d'etat: a sudden and decisive change of government illegally or by force
  wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
• A coup d'état (pronounced 'kū dā ta'), or simply a 'coup', is the sudden overthrow of a government, usually done by a small group that just replaces the top power figures. It is different from a revolution, which is staged by a larger group and radically changes the political system. The term is French for "a sudden stroke, or blow, of a state". ...
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putsch

Example: The Army, led by General Pervez Musharraf, staged a putsch again the Nawaz Sharif government in Pakistan.

No more putsches for Pakistan, please! ;o{

 

Yay for Jian Gomeshi

Jian Gomeshi is an art animator at CBC Radio.
Hosted "Sounds Like Canada" in Summer '06 and from there I know him.
His intros (when he starts a program) for Sounds Like Canada used to be a new poem everyday.

Yesterday, an anonymous caller called Q (his new program) and said that he should shorten his intros. For that, i wrote...

>>> "Muhammad Faraz Anwar" 06/12/07 2:36 pm >>>
...
I LOVE the introductions of your programs. So much so that even if I am
busy, I manage to listen to only the intro of the program.
Last year, I loved your intros for "Sounds Like Canada" (actually, better
than Q's).

...

And got the reply:

From: CBC Q Q@cbc.ca

Thanks for the supportive note Faraz,

the Q crew

Sometimes its good to encourage someone!! ;-)
Faraz.

Pundamentalism

Tappy Huesday!

I had a lot of pun in reading about Puns today; Inspired by "And sometimes Y" on CBC RadioOne yesterday.
Puns are plays-on-words that could be used as rhetorical devices or just for fun. For example, the title of this post is "Pundamentalisms" which is a pun on fun.

There are different types of puns, but my favorite and simplest are Spoonerisms.
Its when you swap first syllable of two words in a sentence to get a different, often funny, new meaning. E.g. "Go shake a tower" instead of "go take a shower".

We have these puns, including Spoonerisms in Urdu too. I remembered that we used to say "charatha" for Chai + Paratha (tea+bread for breakfast), and "makhhar machhian" instead of "Machhar makhhian" (Mosquitos and Flies).
Another very popular Spooner is the famous quip:
Q: "Aapki buji mein kia ghara hay??" (ghari (clock)/baja (rings))
A: "Nonay pon!!" (ponay nau (8:45))

Even holy Bible and Quran have puns (not the funny ones, of course also known as Literary Puns as rhetorical devices):
* Matthew 16.18: "Thou art Peter" [Greek Πετρος, Petros], and upon this rock [ Greek πετρα, petra] I will build my church." (Pun on Peter & Petra (personal-name and stone)
* Quran, Surah Abasa: "wama yudreeka la'allahu yazzakka. Aou yadzzakkaru fa tanfa'ahuz dzikra" (pun on zakaa & dzikra (purify and remember/reminder) .
SubhanAllah, i just discocvered this in tonight's recitation... Quran is no doubt a linguistic miracle too!!

A very nice description of Puns on Wikipedia, alongwith different types:
http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Pun

Rappy Heeding~!! :-D

Al Ghazali: The Alchemist of Happiness

An excellent video about an excellent man.

After watching this video, I have renewed my resolve to read "Ihyaa Uloom udDin", inshaAllah.

Al Ghazali The Alchemist of Happiness

1 hr 19 min 11 sec - 28-May-2007
Average rating: (8 ratings)
Description: Imam Al Ghazali life.. how he became a great philosopher among the religions and his significant contribution. Sufism.

If you're having trouble watching the video, try copying the following URL into your browser:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-4236904890349408032&q=Al-Ghazali%3A+The+Alchemist+of+Happiness&pr=goog-sl

Welcome to Faraznama

So what is Faraznama?? Ok, you understand that Faraz is my name, but what is -nama??!!
-Nama is a suffix widely used in Farsi and Urdu. It means "message". Simple!!
Faraznama = Faraz's messages.

Here I will post everything that I run over, in news, radio, tv, music, or anything that catches my attention.

Enough for intro... enjoy reading Faraznama.