doberman pizza. a baha'i (bahai, bahá'í) blog.

I got a hit from Burkina Faso!
Bienvenue à mes amis burkinabè! :)

hé un gros merci à tout le monde qui est venu à la rencontre des jeunes samedi soir… c’était super lfun de vous revoir et de prendre du temps à s’amuser avec vous! j’ai mis en ligne quelques photos de la soirée - regardez à gauche, là où ça dit “my photoblog”… et puis revisitez ce site dans la semaine à venir, il va y en avoir d’autres.

mémoires:
approfondissement avec pizza et film • café et boissons bizarres de bangkok • shima qui ‘chug’ l’aloès • l’auto sans clés à shamim • le nouveau cell à samuel • les tresses et le mini-défilé • les motards de la well sud • karaoké • crèmes parfumées • à bas la médisance • un gros moton • montre-nous la bicyclette • je veux mitsou!

à bientôt tlm de Sherbrooke et environs… j’ai hâte de vous revoir à la rencontre des jeunes!

I’m going to Sherbrooke for the weekend to hang around with the Baha’i youth… smells like another photo series going up soon ;) If you’re stuck in Ottawa this weekend, why not support the Riverain Park Unity Picnic? Bring friends, contacts, everybody who likes a nice barbecue. Bring your music and/or musical instruments. Have a blast! It’s being held at Riverain Park, starting at 11 AM.

Read up on this: Bahá’í community welcomes statement by Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. From the CBNS article:

Minister Pettigrew expressed concern “over the deterioration of the human rights situation in Iran […]” In detailing areas of concern, Minister Pettigrew’s statement also called “attention to the persecution of minorities in Iran, including members of the Bahá’í faith.”

Minister Pettigrew’s statement brings about the possibility of a UN resolution condemning the abuse of human rights in Iran sometime this fall. Canada has supported such resolutions ever since the early 80s, when the Revolution in Iran sparked mass persecutions of Iranian Baha’is. The past few years saw a hiatus in the passing of any such resolutions, possibly for political reasons.

Many Baha’is in Iran have been killed, imprisoned, and denied basic human rights - such as the right to freedom of worship and the right to higher education - simply because of their Faith.

You can also read the Foreign Affairs press release.

uh oh. once again the time has come for me to start getting tired of the look of my web site. I guess, among other things, flickr is responsible. damn you, flickr. damn you for being more lightweight, faster to load and easier to use than buzznet. oh well. for those of you who haven’t checked out the history of this web site, it’s gone through many iterations and renewals over the 11(!) years of its existence. I guess technology advances, and so does my skill at web design (yay), meaning that last year’s design no longer satisfies. I can’t say that a new design will be forthcoming real soon, but keep an eye open.

anyway. flickr. flickr is cool and, like I said, a lot easier to use than buzznet. I was able to upload a bunch of pics to flickr, as well as tag and sort them, in less than half the time it would have taken me on buzznet. cool. another neat thing: like LiveJournal, flickr has an active Baha’i group. of course, the fun doesn’t stop there. you can see photos tagged as “baha’i”, and even narrow it down to photos of Baha’i temples or the Gardens at the Baha’i World Centre. Neat! There are some really nice ones there, too.

So, in short, I think I may be moving to flickr for my primary source of photoblogging goodness. That’s not to say that I won’t continue posting to buzznet; the “photo of the week” thing seems to be going well, for example. I’ll just do like butter and spread out. I’ve put a little flickr badge on the sidebar of this site just to test it out; stay tuned in the next month for further flickrification.

Is that a word?

hey. so the Super Ex is now in full swing at Landsdowne Park in downtown Ottawa. I performed on stage with Jessica Thirlwall at the “Joy of Faith” concert last Sunday - a free concert organized by the Interfaith committees of the City of Ottawa and the National Capital Region. Many faith communities were represented there, including Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jain, Sikh, and Baha’i (I especially liked the Bhangra dance performed by the Sikh community, and the Jain community’s stick dance). Jessica and I each sang the Baha’i “Unity prayer” - she sang in English, I sang in French. We also did a little canon of “Say God Sufficeth“. People seemed to like the songs!

In addition to the music, there were lots of booths where each different faith group had information, pamphlets, and whatever else. The Baha’is had “No room in my heart for prejudice/violence” stickers - but most people skipped those in favour of pamphlets telling the story of Baha’u'llah and giving an introduction to the Baha’i Faith. Nice! (The Buddhists had little pendants, caramels, and Hershey’s Kisses, which went fast.)

Anyway, that was an eventful weekend. I mentioned the concert at work this morning and everyone was surprised to learn that I could sing. I told them I sang at Carnegie Hall and they were like whoa.

Question to the reader:
Have you ever sung or performed in public? How was it? Did you like it? On a scale of 1 to 10 of important life events (10 being most important), how would you rate that experience?

From bahaiblog.net: Come November, look out for the film “Cape of Good Hope“, by Bahá’ís Mark Bamford and Suzanne Kay. It’s won many awards and prizes so far, including the People’s choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival. Even Roger Ebert gave it big ups!

who’s hiding in the covered chair?
(move mouse over image)

What’s going on this weekend? Why, none other than the 29th Annual Conference of the Association for Baha’i Studies, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, home of Harvard University. And who happens to be offering a presentation this year but Ottawa’s very own beloved area coordinators, Tahirih and Sahba. They’ll be facilitating a breakout session on the University and the Baha’i Faith, specifically about their experience holding FUNDAEC classes as part of campus activities at the University of Ottawa. Represent!

Check out the conference web site, and the program (PDF).

Update: vafa now has pics of the conference online at his website. Update #2: and now arash does too.

(FUNDAEC: Fundación para la Aplicación y Enseñanza de las Ciencias). Visite el sitio web.

I’ve posted the photos from my teaching trip to Drummondville and Victoriaville. Go check them out! (Quick links: page 1 - page 2 - page 3 - google map)

other news: I’ve revamped the scrapbook page - all of my photo sets are now accessible via the main page, meaning you have one less click to wait through to get to the sweet photo goodness. Perhaps this would be a good time to flip through them again for the first time.

Heh. That was pretty good. I ought to write marketing copy.

ladies and gentlemen, allow me to reward your great patience all this week with an interactive map of the teaching trip I went on after the Unravel the Mysteries conference, courtesy of Google Maps and its recently-released API. The Google Maps API (like its competitor from Yahoo) allows you to overlay your own data onto Google Maps - so now, you too can engage in GIS to your heart’s content. Just ask Andrew.

Anyway - enough said. SPECIAL FEATURE IT UP!

P.S.: look for the complete picture set from the teaching trip at the beginning of next week!

I was searching Google just now when I came upon an article about a “Bahai Refugee Camp” at the border of Chad, Darfur, and Sudan. I was surprised. The Baha’is are running a refugee camp? In Darfur? Wow. I followed a link and found a set of photos by Michal Ronnen Safdie - haunting, but beautifully taken photos. They didn’t help me see the Baha’i connection, though - although in picture #19 of that set, I suspected there might be a study circle going on… Finally I continued searching, and discovered that there is actually a town in Chad called “Bahai” — also spelled “Bahay”. I even found it on a map. Neat.

If you haven’t read up on the Darfur conflict (as happens to so many of us busy people), there are plenty of resources to look through.