TrendCentral ideas

This is the Remix
iPad apps let aspiring musicians mix their own tracks

http://www.trendcentral.com/tech/this-is-the-remix/

Remembrance When
A new crop of apps seeks to amplify peoples’ memories
http://www.trendcentral.com/tech/remembrance-when/

Get a Leg Up
Men’s swim shorts reach new heights this season
http://www.trendcentral.com/style/get-a-leg-up/

Park Life
Green spaces in unlikely places marry nature with commerce
http://www.trendcentral.com/life/park-life/

A Question of Degree
The value of a college degree has come under scrutiny

http://www.trendcentral.com/life/a-question-of-degree/

Prefab(ulous)

Ready-made design kits and virtual guidance are streamlining interior design
http://www.trendcentral.com/life/prefabulous/

Masters of Reality
Alternate reality games continue to entice and challenge players

http://www.trendcentral.com/media/masters-of-reality/

Get Up, Stand Up
Office workers are taking a stand—literally
http://www.trendcentral.com/life/get-up-stand-up/

Now Available: The Spring 2011 Cassandra Report
An in-depth examination of today’s tastemakers
http://www.trendcentral.com/life/now-available-the-spring-2011-cassandra-report/

Summer of Love
San Francisco’s indie music scene is thriving

http://www.trendcentral.com/media/summer-of-love/

Africa in Style

Authentic tribal design is being exported to a global audience
http://www.trendcentral.com/style/africa-in-style/

Say Cheese!
The formerly humble grilled cheese may be the sandwich of the year
http://www.trendcentral.com/life/say-cheese-2/

What’s Your Frequency?
New apps put a digital spin on the traditional AM/FM experience
http://www.trendcentral.com/media/what%E2%80%99s-your-frequency/

Some Like It Hot
New ways to break a sweat—in a sauna, that is
http://www.trendcentral.com/life/some-like-it-hot-3/

The E3 Experience
A next gen handheld, an augmented reality console, and a competitive social network
http://www.trendcentral.com/media/the-e3-experience/

Candy Land
Retro hard candy is going gourmet
http://www.trendcentral.com/life/candy-land/

Fancy Footwork
New concept sneakers offer more than enhanced athleticism
http://www.trendcentral.com/style/fancy-footwork/

In Search of Lost Time
Virtual time capsules connect people to their pasts
http://www.trendcentral.com/tech/in-search-of-lost-time/

Super Fly
Innovation is ready for take-off in the air travel industry
http://www.trendcentral.com/life/super-fly/

Cycle Up
New upcycled design lines transform trash into treasure

http://www.trendcentral.com/style/cycle-up/

In Fine Order

New food delivery sites bring quality eats to diners’ doorsteps
http://www.trendcentral.com/life/in-fine-order/

Play Date
Evolutions in online dating make seeking romance fun
http://www.trendcentral.com/life/play-date/

Rad for the ’Pad
Innovative iPad accessories continue to flourish
http://www.trendcentral.com/tech/rad-for-the-%E2%80%99pad/

Ice Age
The newest ways to indulge in ice cream this summer
http://www.trendcentral.com/life/ice-age/

Beyond Craigslist
Community-based online classifieds drive new social marketplaces
http://www.trendcentral.com/tech/beyond-craigslist/

Mustafa Akyol: Faith versus tradition in Islam

At TEDxWarwick, journalist Mustafa Akyol talks about the way that some local cultural practices (such as wearing a headscarf) have become linked, in the popular mind, to the articles of faith of Islam. Has the world's general idea of the Islamic faith focused too much on tradition, and not enough on core beliefs?



A few weeks ago, I had a chance to go to Saudi Arabia. And the first thing I wanted to do as a Muslim was go to Mecca and visit the Kaaba, the holiest shrine of Islam. And I did that; I put on my ritualistic dress; I went to the holy mosque; I did my prayers; I observed all the rituals. And meanwhile, besides all the spirituality, there was one mundane detail in the Kaaba that was pretty interesting for me. There was no separation of sexes. In other words, men and women were worshiping all together. They were together while doing the tawaf, the circular walk around the Kaaba. They were together while praying.

And if you wonder why this is interesting at all, you have to see the rest of Saudi Arabia, because it's a country which is strictly divided between the sexes. In other words, as men, you are not simply supposed to be in the same physical space with women. And I noticed this in a very funny way. I left the Kaaba to eat something in downtown Mecca. I headed to the nearest Burger King restaurant. And I went there -- I noticed that there was a male section, which was carefully separated from the female section. And I had to pay, order and eat at the male section. "It's funny," I said to myself, "you can mingle with the opposite sex at the holy Kaaba, but not at the Burger King."

Quite ironic. Ironic, and it's also, I think, quite telling. Because the Kaaba and the rituals around it are relics from the earliest phase of Islam, that of prophet Muhammad. And if there was a big emphasis at the time to separate men from women, the rituals around the Kaaba could have been designed accordingly. But apparently that was not an issue at the time. So the rituals came that way. This is also, I think, confirmed by the fact that the seclusion of women in creating a divided society is something that you also do not find in the Koran, the very core of Islam -- the divine core of Islam that all Muslims, and equally myself, believe. And I think it's not an accident that you don't find this idea in the very origin of Islam. Because many scholars who study the history of Islamic thought -- Muslim scholars or Westerners -- think that actually the practice of dividing men and women physically came as a later development in Islam, as Muslims adopted some preexisting cultures and traditions of the Middle East. Seclusion of women was actually a Byzantine and Persian practice, and Muslims adopted that and made that a part of their religion.

And actually this is just one example of a much larger phenomenon. What we call today Islamic Law, and especially Islamic culture -- and there are many Islamic cultures actually; the one in Saudi Arabia is much different from where I come from in Istanbul or Turkey. But still, if you're going to speak about a Muslim culture, this has a core, the divine message, which began the religion, but then many traditions, perceptions, many practices were added on top of it. And these were traditions of the Middle East -- Medieval traditions.

And there are two important messages, or two lessons, to take from that reality. First of all, Muslims -- pious, conservative, believing Muslims who want to be loyal to their religion -- should not cling onto everything in their culture, thinking that that's divinely mandated. Maybe some things are bad traditions and they need to be changed. On the other hand, the Westerners who look at Islamic culture and see some troubling aspects should not readily conclude that this is what Islam ordains. Maybe it's a Middle Eastern culture that became confused with Islam.

There is a practice called female circumcision. It's something terrible, horrible. It is basically an operation to deprive women of sexual pleasure. And Westerners, Europeans or Americans, who didn't know about this before faced this practice within some of the Muslim communities who migrated from North Africa. And they've thought, "Oh, what a horrible religion that is which ordains something like that." But actually when you look at female circumcision, you see that it has nothing to do with Islam, it's just a North African practice, which predates Islam. It was there for thousands of years. And quite tellingly, some Muslims do practice that. The Muslims in North Africa, not in other places. But also the non-Muslim communities of North Africa -- the Animists, even some Christians and even a Jewish tribe in North Africa is known to practice female circumcision. So what might look like a problem within Islamic faith might turn out to be a tradition that Muslims have subscribed to.

The same thing can be said for honor killings, which is a recurrent theme in the Western media -- and which is, of course, a horrible tradition. And we see truly in some Muslim communities that tradition. But in the non-Muslim communities of the Middle East, such as some Christian communities, Eastern communities, you see the same practice. We had a tragic case of an honor killing withing Turkey's Armenian community just a few months ago.

Now these are things about general culture, but I'm also very much interested in political culture and whether liberty and democracy is appreciated, or whether there's an authoritarian political culture in which the state is supposed to impose things on the citizens. And it is no secret that many Islamic movements in the Middle East tend to be authoritarian, and some of the so-called "Islamic regimes" such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and the worst case was the Taliban in Afghanistan, they are pretty authoritarian -- no doubt about that.

For example, in Saudi Arabia there is a phenomenon called the religious police. And the religious police imposes the supposed Islamic way of life on every citizen, by force -- like women are forced to cover their heads -- wear the hijab, the Islamic head cover. Now that is pretty authoritarian, and that's something I'm very much critical of. But when I realized that the non-Muslim, or the non-Islamic-minded actors in the same geography, sometimes behaved similarly, I realized that the problem maybe lies in the political culture of the whole region, not just Islam. Let me give you an example: in Turkey where I come from, which is a very hyper-secular republic, until very recently we used to have what I call secularism police, which would guard the universities against veiled students. In other words, they would force students to uncover their heads. And I think forcing people to uncover their head is as tyrannical as forcing them to cover it. It should be the citizen's decision.

But when I saw that, I said, "Maybe the problem is just an authoritarian culture in the region, and some Muslims have been influenced by that." But the secular-minded people can be influenced by that. Maybe it's a problem of the political culture, and we have to think about how to change that political culture. Now these are some of the questions I had in mind a few years ago when I sat down to write a book. I said, "Well I will make a research about how Islam actually came to be what it is today, and what roads were taken and what roads could have been taken." The name of the book is "Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty." And as the subtitle suggests, I looked at Islamic tradition and the history of Islamic thought from the perspective of individual liberty, and I tried to find what are the strengths with regard to individual liberty.

And there are strengths in Islamic tradition. Islam actually, as a monotheistic religion, which defined man as a responsible agent by itself, created the idea of the individual in the Middle East and saved it from the communitarianism, the collectivism of the tribe. You can derive many ideas from that. But besides that, I also saw problems within Islamic tradition. But one thing was curious: most of those problems turn out to be problems that emerged later, not from the very divine core of Islam, the Koran, but from, again, traditions and mentalities, or the interpretations of the Koran that Muslims made in the Middle Ages. The Koran, for example, doesn't condone stoning. There is no punishment on apostasy. There is no punishment on personal things like drinking. These things which make Islamic Law, the troubling aspects of Islamic Law, were later developed into later interpretations of Islam. Which means that Muslims can, today, look at those things and say, "Well, the core of our religion is here to stay with us. It's our faith, and we will be loyal to it." But we can change how it was interpreted, because it was interpreted according to the time and milieu in the Middle Ages. Now we are living in a different world with different values and different political systems. That interpretation is quite possible and feasible.

Now if I were the only person thinking that way, we would be in trouble. But that's not the case at all. Actually, from the 19th century on, there's a whole revisionist, reformist -- whatever you call it -- tradition, a trend in Islamic thinking. And these were intellectuals or statesmen of the 19th century, and later, 20th century, which looked at Europe basically and saw that Europe has many things to admire, like science and technology. But not just that; also democracy, parliament, the idea of representation, the idea of equal citizenship. These Muslim thinkers and intellectuals and statesmen of the 19th century looked at Europe, saw these things. They said, "Why don't we have these things?" And they looked back at Islamic tradition, they saw that there are problematic aspects, but they're not the core of the religion, so maybe they can be re-understood, and the Koran can be reread in the modern world.

That trend is generally called Islamic modernism, and it was advanced by intellectuals and statesmen, not just as an intellectual idea though, but also as a political program. And that's why actually in the 19th century the Ottoman Empire, which then covered the whole Middle East, made very important reforms -- reforms like giving Christians and Jews an equal citizenship status, accepting a constitution, accepting a representative parliament, advancing the idea of freedom of religion. And that's why the Ottoman Empire in its last decades turned into a proto-democracy, a constitutional monarchy. And freedom was a very important political value at the time.

Similarly, in the Arab world, there was what the great Arab historian Albert Hourani defines as the Liberal Age. He has a book, "Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age." And the Liberal Age, he defines as 19th century and early 20th century. Quite notably, this was the dominant trend in the early 20th century among Islamic thinkers and statesmen and theologians. But there is a very curious pattern in the rest of the 20th century, because we see a sharp decline in this Islamic modernist line. And in place of that, what happens is that Islamism grows as an ideology which is authoritarian, which is quite strident, which is quite anti-Western, and which wants to shape society based on a utopian vision.

So Islamism is the problematic idea that really created a lot of problems in the 20th century Islamic world. And even the very extreme forms of Islamism led to terrorism in the name of Islam -- which is actually a practice that I think is against Islam, but some, obviously, extremists did not think that way. But there is a curious question: If Islamic modernism was so popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries, why did Islamism become so popular in the rest of the 20th century? And this is a question, I think, which needs to be discussed carefully. And in my book, I went into that question as well. And actually you don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that. You just look at the political history of the 20th century, and you see things have changed a lot. The context has changed.

In the 19th century, when Muslims were looking at Europe as an example, they were independent, they were more self-confident. In the early 20th century, with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the whole Middle East was colonized. And when you have colonization what do you have? You have anti-colonization. So Europe is not just an example now to emulate; it's an enemy to fight and to resist. So there's a very sharp decline in liberal ideas in the Muslim world, and what you see is more of a defensive, rigid, reactionary strain, which led to Arab socialism, Arab nationalism and ultimately to the Islamist ideology. And when the colonial period ended, what you had in place of that was, generally, secular dictators, which say they're a country, but did not bring democracy to the country, and established their own dictatorship. And I think the West, at least some powers in the West, particularly the United States, made the mistake of supporting those secular dictators, thinking that they were more helpful for their interests. But the fact that those dictators suppressed democracy in their country and suppressed Islamic groups in their country actually made the Islamists much more strident.

So in the 20th century, you had this vicious cycle in the Arab world where you have a dictatorship suppressing its own people including the Islamic pious, and they're reacting in reactionary ways. There was one country though which was able to escape or stay away from that vicious cycle. And that's the country where I come from; that's Turkey. Turkey has never been colonized, so it remained as an independent nation after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. That's one thing to remember. They did not share the same anti-colonial hype that you can find in some other countries in the region. Secondly, and most importantly, Turkey became a democracy earlier than any of the countries we are talking about. In 1950, Turkey had the first free and fair elections, which ended the more autocratic secular regime, which was the beginning of Turkey. And the pious Muslims in Turkey saw that they can change the political system by voting. And they realize that democracy is something that is compatible with Islam, compatible with their values, and they've been supportive of democracy. That's an experience that not every other Muslim nation in the Middle East had until very recently.

Secondly, in the past two decades, thanks to globalization, thanks to the market economy, thanks to the rise of a middle-class, we in Turkey see what I define as a rebirth of Islamic modernism. Now there's the more urban middle-class pious Muslims who, again, look at their tradition and see that there are some problems in the tradition. And they understand that they need to be changed and questioned and reformed. And they look at Europe, and they see an example, again, to follow. They see an example, at least, to take some inspiration from. That's why the E.U. process, Turkey's effort to join the E.U., has been supported inside Turkey by the Islamic pious, while some secular nations were against that. Well that process has been a little bit blurred by the fact that not all Europeans are that welcoming -- but that's another discussion. But the pro-E.U. sentiment in Turkey in the past decade has become almost an Islamic cause, and supported by the Islamic liberals and the secular liberals as well, of course.

And thanks to that, Turkey has been able to reasonably create a success story in which Islam and the most pious understandings of Islam have become part of the democratic game, and even contributes to the democratic and economic advance of the country. And this has been an inspiring example right now for some of the Islamic movements or some of the countries in the Arab world.

You must have all seen the Arab Spring, which began in Tunis and in Egypt. And Arab masses just revolted against their dictators. They were asking for democracy; they were asking for freedom. And they did not turn out to be the Islamist boogyman that the dictators were always using to justify their regime. They said that "we want freedom, we want democracy. We are Muslim believers, but we want to be living as free people in free societies." Of course, this is a long road. Democracy is not an overnight achievement; it's a process. But this is a promising era in the Muslim world.

And I believe that the Islamic modernism which began in the 19th century, but which had a set-back in the 20th century because of the political troubles of the Muslim world, is having a rebirth. And I think the getaway message from that would be that Islam, despite some of the skeptics in the West, has the potential in itself to create its own way to democracy, create its own way to liberalism, create its own way to freedom. They just should be allowed to work for that.

Thanks so much.

Malcolm McLaren - his life, authenticity vs karaoke culture

How does one find authentic creativity? In his last talk before passing away, Malcolm McLaren tells remarkable stories from his own life, from failing school to managing the Sex Pistols. He argues that we're living in a karaoke culture, with false promises of instant success, and that messiness and failure are the key to true learning.

http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_mclaren_authentic_creativity_vs_karaoke_culture.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2011-05-31&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

HOW TO UNLEASH YOUR INNER CARTOONIST

We all draw as kids, yet most of us stop drawing somewhere around the fourth or fifth grade. Doodles seem unserious by then, and adulthood only makes us less likely to draw.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/39019

Zero-Packaging Grocery Store

When we debut in 2011, in.gredients will be the first package-free, zero waste grocery store in the United States.

Be a part of the launch!

http://in.gredients.com/

Austin, Texas is already home to Whole Foods, but that won't stop a group of entrepreneurs from founding a new grocery store right in the natural food behemoth's backyard. While the new store In.gredients will also specialize in local and organic ingredients, there's one major difference between this venture and its hometown competion: In.gredients promises to be the country's first ever "package-free, zero waste grocery store."

The idea is so simple, it's surprising that no one in the United States has implemented it yet. (The United Kingdom, on the other hand, got the bulk food-only Unpackaged in London last year). Just like many people bring tote bags to the grocery store, shoppers at In.gredients will be encouraged to bring their own containers to pack up items like grains, oils, and dairy. If a shopper doesn't have his own containers, the store will provide compostable ones. It's as if the specialty bulk food section rebelled and took over the rest of a traditional grocery store. In.gredients will replace unhealthy, overpackaged junk with local, organic, and natural foods, and moonlight as a community center with cooking classes, gardening workshops, and art shows on the side.

“Truth be told, what’s normal in the grocery business isn’t healthy for consumers or the environment," In.gredients co-founder Christian Lane said in a press release. Americans add 570 million pounds of food packaging to their landfills each day, while pre-packaged foods force consumers to buy more than they need, stuffing their bellies and their trash bins: 27 percent of food brought into U.S. kitchens ends up getting tossed out.

In.gredients's founders hope to open the grocery store's doors in East Austin this fall, provided that the funding goes through.

On Religion

Ricky Gervais on Christianity: Jesus Was My Invisible Babysitter

http://bigthink.com/rickygervais#!video_idea_id=13292

Neil deGrasse Tyson on Science and Religion

http://bigthink.com/neildegrassetyson#!video_idea_id=13148

Ray Kurzweil – Becoming more human

http://aether.com/archives/ray-kurzweil-more-human.html

G. Edward Griffin: Collectivism Vs. Individualism

A Discourse on Government




A Discourse on Government by G. Edward Griffin "Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." -- Attributed to George Washington This program consists of unedited responses to questions presented to G. Edward Griffin by a camera crew creating a documentary on the U.S. Constitution. In this session, he answers the most difficult questions imaginable in the fields of political and social science. The depth and clarity of his response is amazing, especially considering he is speaking extemporaneously without benefit of script or notes. In an era when many people are just now waking up to the WHAT of current events, here are issues for the brain that go far beyond that shallow pool into the deep water of WHY and HOW. Also included is a bonus feature entitled Winning for America, Mr. Griffin's commentary on the Ron Paul 2008 campaign and a long-term strategy for victory offered by Freedom Force International. With these programs together, be prepared for a most rewarding journey.

C.S. Lewis: from theism to Christianity

http://civiccircus.com/2011/05/response-to-stephen-hawkings-on-religion-myth/

C.S. Lewis: It must be understood that my conversion at that point was only to theism pure and simple. I knew nothing yet about the incarnation. The God to whom I surrendered was sheerly non-human.

C.S. Lewis: [Reading from Chesterton] A great man knows he is not God and the greater he is, the better he knows it. The gospels declare that this mysterious maker of the world has visited his world in person. The most that any religious prophet has said was that he was the true servant of such a being. But if the creator was present in the daily life of the Roman empire, that is something unlike anything else in nature. It is the one great startling statement that man has made since he spoke his first articulate word. It makes dust and nonsense of comparative religion.

C.S. Lewis: As I drew near to Christianity, I felt a resistance almost as strong as my previous resistance to theism. As strong but shorter lived for I understood it better. But each step, one had less chance to call one's soul one's own.

C.S. Lewis: What Tolkien showed me was this — that if I met the idea of sacrifice in a pagan story I didn't mind it at all — I was mysteriously moved by it. The reason was that in pagan stories I was prepared to feel the myth as profound. Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth.

C.S. Lewis: I know very well when but hardly how the final step was taken. I went with my brother to have a picnic at Whipsnade Zoo. We started in fog, but by the end of our journey the sun was shining. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and when we reached the zoo I did. I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion. It was more like when a man, after a long sleep, becomes aware that he is now awake.

WHEN A PIPE IS NOT A PIPE

HOW SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE CREATES INSIGHT, CREATIVITY, AND MINDFULNESS

http://bigthink.com/ideas/38772

Should Men Be Allowed to Father Children After They're Dead?

Fertility-treatment innovations mean that all sorts of people who would not have been able to have a baby a generation ago are now able to bring life into the world. Now, some are arguing the ranks of the newly fertile should include dead people.

http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/03/should-men-be-allowed-to-father-children-after-theyre-dead/

WE WILL BECOME LIKE THE GODS WE ONCE FEARED

"How will the world look post-singularity?

Can you walk us through a day in the life of a transhuman?"

http://bigthink.com/ideas/38581

Testosterone Affects Financial Risk Taking, Study Finds

The differences between men and women have long been the topic of Venus-and-Mars themed relationship books and staples of comedians’ routines. Lately, they’ve also been popping up in b-school related news.

http://www.bnet.com/blog/mba/testosterone-affects-financial-risk-taking-study-finds/1121

Testosterone Affects Some Women’s Career Choices

http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200908284

On ‘Jeopardy!’ Women Take Fewer Risks vs. Men

A study of contestant behavior on the popular game show “Jeopardy!” suggests women tend to hedge their bets when facing male opponents.

http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-society/on-jeopardy-women-take-fewer-risks-vs-men-31797/

Does Twitter Make You Stupid?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/magazine/does-twitter-make-you-stupid.html?_r=2

As a high-school junior, I am deeply saddened by the attitude of despondency toward my generation expressed by Bill Keller in “The Twitter Trap.” There are some ill side effects of our prolonged exposure to the Internet, notably a shortened attention span and an unappeasable desire to be instantly gratified. But those are only the cons of being in constant communication with one another. Never before could a high-school student so brazenly reach out to a Harvard graduate student and ask for mentorship on his research paper. Never again will we think it odd for someone from the farthest corner of the globe to be exchanging witticisms on Twitter with a well-known celebrity.

Is Twitter writing, or is it speech?

Why we need a new paradigm for our social media platforms

http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/06/is-twitter-writing-or-is-it-speech-why-we-need-a-new-paradigm-for-our-social-media-platforms/

What is Twitter, actually? (No, seriously!) And what type of communication is it, finally?

IF YOU WERE ON TWITTER

Dear educator, if you were on Twitter yesterday, you might have found:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/38698

IS CAR SHARING THE FUTURE OF THE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY?

http://bigthink.com/ideas/38693

INTRODUCING FUTURE CRIMES

"Should Virtual Suicide Be Outlawed?" "Hacking the Human Heart" These two provocative headlines are from recent posts by Marc Goodman, the author of Future Crimes, a new blog on Big Think. Goodman is a global thinker, writer and consultant focused on the disruptive impact of advancing technologies on security, business and international affairs.

Big Think recently interviewed Goodman about what readers can expect to learn from reading Future Crimes. Among other things, Goodman tells Big Think that in the future "the virtual agents of good and evil will do battle in cyberspace--making this a very interesting field to be in!"

http://bigthink.com/ideas/38651