Due to the missing of the following items I declare my Eid as not so happy Eid this year:

Open space Eid prayer
Arabic Coffee
Kunafeh
Mamool (almond cookies)
Eid Bakery (Aqraas Eid)
and of course my family.	Not my real family.

Happy Eid to you and

may Allah accept your good deeds.

The pictures in this post are the property of the internet.

One of my advisers once drew a vertical line on a white sheet of paper and told me, in research, one needs to think vertically. He then continued, explaining, that graduate students should dig deeper and deeper into the problem until a solution is found. Vertical thinking is an analytical and sequential process and it is widely adopted by researchers in the academia because it finds a solution to the problem faster than the horizontal thinking strategy. In addition, it builds more experienced researchers in the field of investigation.

Horizontal thinking, unlike vertical thinking, is to investigate wider not deeper. Howard Gardner calls vertical thinkers the experts and horizontal thinkers the visionaries. Others, use Edward De Bono’s coined term literal thinking to define horizontal thinking. In general, literal thinking means being creative and thinking outside the box.

Each thinking strategy has its advantages and disadvantages. Therefore it is good to know how we think and how different we think. People who think vertically are usually concerned in how to solve the problem. They also usually know everything about something. On the other hand, people who think horizontally are usually concerned in why a particular problem occurs. They know something about everything, related to their field.

Most outstanding research results are the ones that produced from interdisciplinary fields. Investigating one field to find an answer will solve a problem but making links between two fields or more to find an answer will lead to a breakthrough solution. This is why horizontal thinking is linked to breakthrough research.

The figure below depicts the differences between these two thinking methods. Unlike vertical thinking, horizontal thinking requests more time, data, and background study. While both concepts produce a solution to the problem, their outputs might not be the same. Vertical thinking discovers a solution faster than horizontal thinking, but its solution’s quality might not be as good as the horizontal thinking.

On this unprecedented occasion, I would like to congratulate the Arab World for its marvelous achievement. We made it, at last. The 300 million Arab can take a day off, maybe a week why not, after all this hard work. Finally, an Arab university had made it to the top 500 universities. Although, it is in the 5th tier (402-501) but, hey, this is unheard of before. King Saud University in Saudi Arabia had made it to the list, congratulations.

This week, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) published its 2009 list of the best 500 universities. The annual ranking, which is in its seventh year, began at Shanghai Jiao Tong University as an attempt to measure the performance of Chinese post-secondary education relative to the rest of the world. But according to The Economist, it’s since become “the most widely used annual ranking of the world’s research universities.” [Source]

The purpose of the table below is to give some perspective of the catastrophic scientific research level in the Arab. It is compared with countries that are much smaller. The Arab world consists of 25 countries that speak Arabic. These countries are in North Africa and in the Middle-east.

Countries as rich as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia should stop their insanity with building tallest towers, they serve no purpose what so ever. Beside, such projects are mainly designed, built, and managed by non-Arab so what to be proud of? None of the countries in the table above, except of those two countries, even thought of building high rise building. Arabs don’t lack the intelligence it is very obvious when you see them excel at top American research institutes, universities, hospitals, and in many other different areas. They just need to be in the right place. Unfortunately, right now this “right place” is not in the Arab world. Rich Arab countries should start thinking seriously of the importance of scientific research. The Arab world should build and sponsor a state-of-the-art research institute that produces top Arab scientists. Without scientific research the Arab world will be behind for the next couple of centuries.

Being the president of the Muslim Students Organization (MSO) at my university I was approached by some American Muslim students telling me that the MSO should write a letter of condemnation about the shooting spree which took place couple of days ago in Fort Hood, Texas. While discussing the matter with some other American Muslim Students regarding what to write and what not and getting some feedback, some of them were against writing such letter. Just to be clear, they were not against condemning what happened they were just against writing the letter and post it on the MSO website. Their reason is that they don’t think whenever a Muslim does something bad that the entire Muslims should be held responsible for it.

In my opinion, I see no reason for Muslim organizations in America to hold press conferences and post press releases on their websites to condemn the act of a single mad Muslim. What happened was very terrible and unfortunately is not helping the Muslims image, especially in the United States. Nevertheless, we should continue with our life.

p.s., we wrote a condemnation letter and posted it in our website.

Today, we had a wonderful weather and who is better than Maria to describe it.

Maria: Oh, oh. Reverend Mother, I’m so sorry. I just couldn’t help myself. The gates were open. And the hills were beckoning and before I … well, you see the sky was so blue today, and everything was so green and fragrant. I just had to be a part of it. And the bird kept leading me higher and higher as though it wanted me to go right through the clouds with it.

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This is a song about Maria from the movie “The Sound of Music“:

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Maria?
…

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

When I’m with her I’m confused
Out of focus and bemused
And I never know exactly where I am
Unpredictable as weather
She’s as flighty as a feather
She’s a darling! She’s a demon! She’s a lamb!

…

She is gentle! She is wild!
She’s a riddle! She’s a child!
She’s a headache! She’s an angel!
She’s a girl!

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The Sound of Music (1965)

كان رشيد شابا في اواخر العشرينات من العمر، يكبرني ببضع سنين. كلانا ترك بلده لاكمال دراسته. أنا قدمت من الأردن وهو من الجزائر. قبل سفره كان يعمل معيدا في احدى الجامعات الحكومية في بلده. خلال فترة عمله مدرسا استطاع ان يدخر مبلغا من المال كاف لاكمال دراسته. كان شخصا ممن يعتمدون على انفسهم، لا يسأل مساعدة من أحد. كان يختلف عن بقية الشباب من جيلنا. كنا أحيانا كثيرة نقضي الساعات في مناقشات جادة وغير جادة، ولكن النقاشات الجادة كانت تغلب حديثنا. كان الحديث معه ممتع شيق. تلمح فيه ذكاء غير موجود ممن هم في جيله. كان نقضه البناء لأبناء بلده العربي المسلم ومقارنته بالمجتمعات الغربية وحتى الشرقية المتحضرة هو ديدنه. يلحظ أدق الأمور والتفاصيل في هذه المجتمعات متمنيا أن تنهج مجتمعاتنا العربية ما هو مفيد منها وتترك ما يناقض ديننا.ـ

ما زلت أذكر عندما أريته صورة – لم أعد أتذكر تفاصيلها– وصلتني بالبريد الألكتروني تشهد على معجزة الله سبحانه وتعالى. قال لي حينها “هذه ليست معجزة”. دهشت من جوابه وتجرئه على هذا القول. ولكنه كان انسانا يؤمن بالعقل والمنطق. ولكن منطقه هذا لم يمنعه بأن يكون شابا متدينا محافظا على صلواته المفروضه.ـ

رغم التزامه كان أول شاب عربي أتعرف عليه يعلن صراحة عدم حبه لوالده. فتقاليدنا العربية لاتسمح لنا بنقد الوالدين. كان والده كأحد هؤلاء الذين يحسبون أن زوجاتهم وأبنائهم ملك لهم. الأب يأمر والجميع يطيع. لا رأي في البيت سوى رأيه وحده. كان صديقي هذا يتسآل ساخرا دائما من مدى حرص مجتمعاتنا العربية على تلقين الأبناء حب وطاعة الوالدين دون الأخذ بعين الاعتبار فيما اذا كانا –الوالدين- يستحقون هذا الحب والطاعة العمياء. لكنه كان في نفس الوقت دائم الحديث عن والدته. قد يكون حبه واشتياقه لها هو السبب في كثرة الحديث عنها، أو قد يكون حزنه لتركه اياها مع والده دون أن يستطيع مساعدتها. كان يقول أحيانا كثيره انه لم يعد هناك أي شيء على الأطلاق يجعله يعود الى بلده سوى والدته.ـ

كحال كل الطلبة المغتربين أفترقنا وانقطع الاتصال بيننا. سألت عنه فقيل لي أنه فقد والدته وهو في الغربه دون أن يراها. تألمت كثيرا لهذا الخبر فوالدته كانت الشيء الجميل الوحيد في حياته الذي كان يتمنى رؤيته. كان يتمنى انهاء دراسته ليبقى بقربها ويعوضها عن سعادة لم تراها مع والده. تألمت أكثر عندما علمت أنه فقد الاتصال بالخالق ولم يعد يصلي. للأسف كانت محنة واختبارا أقوى منه. علمت فيما بعد أنه رجع الى بلده. لا اعلم السبب رغم أنه كان يردد أن السبب الوحيد الذي سوف يجعله يعود الى وطنه هو والدته – قد يكون شعوره بأنه قريب منها في بلده رغم وفاتها سبب في عودته…ـ

لا أعلم حاله الآن، ولكني أرجو أن يكون قد تصالح مع القدير العزيز…ـ

Unless you have never used the internet before you should have received one of the many Nigerians’ business proposal email scams. Recently, these business proposals are not from Nigeria anymore. Read the two emails that I received recently; one from Hong Kong and the other one from Scotland. It seems bankofscotland.com does exist but bea.com does not, the legitimate bank is hkbea.com.

I am afraid because of the current economic crises, people’s greed for fast money will flourish this business proposal email scams. Therefore, expect to receive such emails once every week in the near future.

From: ZHANG (zhanglui@bea.com)

Goodday,
I am Mr. Zhang Liu  i work with Bank of East Asia. I have a business of  $26.5million for you
contact me for details.
Zhang Liu.

From: Leith Fraser (leith@bankofscotland.com)

Good Day,
I am contacting you for a business transaction involving GBP £17,000,000 (Seventeen Million Pounds Sterling) hoping that you will contact me at your earliest convenient for a possible business deal. I am presently the External Auditor of Bank Of Scotland Plc, with your sincere assistant and co-operation, I am determined to work this deal with you if you can do the business. At the moment, I am constrained to issue more  details about this business until your positive response is received. Please take a moment of your time to read this  and send your response. I assure  you that this deal is worth taking and highly profitable.

Leith Fraser

While I was trying to make sense of the nonsense that I am reading, a ladybird settled on the book that I am struggling with and let me took couple of pictures of her beautiful exotic curve. Lucky her she flew away when she got bored.