Podcasts about GTU

In this episode, we discuss Mohammad Rustom's new book, Inrushes of the Heart, which delves into the life and thought of the Muslim philosopher and Sufi master 'Ayn al-Quḍāt Hamadānī. The conversation explores the book's insights into 'Ayn al-Quḍāt's original teachings on topics such as God, human agency, and spiritual practice. Path & Present is a long form conversation hosted by poet, emcee, and teaching-artist Baraka Blue with friends and guests including artists, musicians, authors, and scholars to collectively explore what it means to walk a path of awakening and spiritual discernment in the modern world. Topics covered include spirituality/religion/metaphysics, community, art/music, psychology, social justice, Islam and Muslims in the West, and earth stewardship. Path & Present Is a community endeavor produced for the sake of sharing the stories of our communities and amplifying the forces of positivity and goodness in the universe. It is made possible through the support of our sponsors such as SufiCorner as well as from our community. Support Our Podcast: Help us keep these conversations going by becoming a patron. Enjoy exclusive content and behind-the-scenes access while supporting our mission.

Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time - Mark 4: 26-34 Michele Connolly RSJ is a Sister of St Joseph of Lochinvar in the Hunter Valley. She is an Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Biblical Studies Discipline Coordinator at the Sydney College of Divinity and lectures in Biblical Studies at Catholic Institute of Sydney, a pontifical institute of theology. After teaching in secondary schools for about ten years, she studied theology, graduating in 2008 with a PhD from GTU, Berkeley, CA. Michele's principal area of interest is the Gospel of Mark. In 2018 her doctoral thesis was published by T&T Clark, under the title, Disorderly Women and the Order of God: An Australian Feminist Reading of the Gospel of Mark. Michele speaks regularly around Australia at conferences on the Scriptures.

Rita D. Sherma is founding Director and Associate Professor at the Center for Dharma Studies; Core Doctoral Faculty; Department Chair of Theology & Ethics; and Co-Chair of Sustainability 360 Initiative at GTU, Berkeley, CA. Formerly, she was the Swami Vivekananda Visiting Professor in Hindu Studies at USC, Los Angeles. She holds an MA in Women's Studies in Religion, and a PhD in Theology & Ethics from Claremont Graduate University, CA. Sherma is co-founder of the American Academy of Religion's Hinduism Program Unit. She is the founding Vice President of DANAM (Dharma Academy of North America)—a scholarly society for research on Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religious & interreligious studies—and serves as Vice President of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. Dr. Sherma has authored/edited/co-edited numerous books and is the founding Editor-in-Chief of "Journal of Dharma Studies." She serves on the Editorial Board of "Reading Religion" Journal (an AAR publication), serves as Advisor to the Parliament of the World's Religions Climate Action-sponsored Faith for the Earth online & print project, as well as on the Advisory Board of the Yale Forum for Religion and Ecology. Her pedagogical approach goes beyond encounters in the classroom to create collaborations with her students in research, writing, publications, and sponsoring students' leadership in their disciplines.

rWotD Episode 2460: David Robertson (engineer) Welcome to random Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of a random Wikipedia page every day.The random article for Sunday, 28 January 2024 is David Robertson (engineer).David Robertson (1875 – 1941) was the first Professor of Electrical Engineering at Bristol University. Robertson had wide interests and one of these was horology – he wanted to provide the foundation of what we could call “horological engineering”, that is, a firm science-based approach to the design of accurate mechanical clocks. He contributed a long series on the scientific foundations of precision clocks to the Horological Journal which was the main publication for the trade in the UK; he and his students undertook research on clocks and pendulums (some funded by the Society of Merchant Venturers); and he designed at least one notable clock, to keep University time and control the chiming of Great George in the Wills Memorial Building from its inauguration on 1925, for which he also designed the chiming mechanism.Today, we get accurate time from atomic clock ensembles in observatories round the world, compared and distributed by GPS satellites and over the internet, and displayed on almost any public or personal screen. Accurate time has become ubiquitous and its maintenance a branch of information and communications technology. A century ago none of this existed, and the world depended on the pendulum clock to keep its time, referenced to astronomical observations. There was a scientific literature on the behaviour of pendulums and clocks; and a widespread craft-based industry making timepieces; but it could not be said that horology was a branch of engineering.Robertson became Professor of Electrical Engineering in Merchant Venturer’s Technical College in 1902. MVTC merged with University College Bristol when the latter was granted a Royal Charter in 1909 and became the engineering faculty of the new University of Bristol – Robertson then became the first professor of the subject in the faculty. He served in this post until his death in 1941. Clock-wise, the Shortt Synchronome Free Pendulum clock entered service at the Royal Observatory in 1923 and kept Greenwich, and therefore the nation’s, time until supplanted by quartz clocks in the 1940s. Throughout Robertson’s career therefore, pendulum time was paramount. Suppliers such as the Synchronome Company or Gents of Leicester could by 1925 have supplied perfectly satisfactory and well-proven systems to run the bell and slave clocks throughout the building. The fact that the University chose to commission a unique and original design is a tribute perhaps to its pride in the new building and to its distinguished Professor, who was able to put into practice the principles that he had developed.The Robertson ClockOriginally mounted in an interior foyer of the Wills Memorial Building, Robertson's clock is housed in an oak case 1753 x 837 x 310 mm (h/w/d), originally carried on stout oak “dogs” let into the masonry of an internal wall. The case was also secured to the wall through its back, but does not support any of the mechanisms, which are separately mounted through the case back into the wall using studs. The opening front door is fully glazed. In its new home in Queen’s Building the original studs are re-mounted on to a large steel plate, firmly screwed to the reinforced concrete wall.At the top of the case a clock dial displays hours and minutes as kept by the pendulum. The dial is a standard Gents slave clock movement which is advanced by a pulse every 30s, counted down from seconds pulses generated by the pendulum. Additional circuits in the clock once generated other half-minute pulses that controlled 3 strings of similar slave clocks throughout the building.Right down the centre of the case is the pendulum, of the order of a metre long and with a period of 2 seconds. It is suspended from a bracket attached to a massive iron casting bolted through to the wall, which also carries the “escapement” mechanism to the right under the face. This drives the pendulum with a small impulse of force every second, generated by the drop of a small weight under the control of an electromagnet. Part of the mechanism includes a 60-tooth ratchet wheel advanced on every pendulum swing by a pawl driven by the electromagnet. Originally this operated a pair of contacts by two pins on its periphery to generate the half-minute pulses, but at some stage these contacts were removed.To the left of the pendulum is the regulator. This is arranged to apply a small force to the pendulum which through an ingenious linkage effectively works against gravity, slowing the pendulum down. The force comes from a torque generated by a spiral hair-spring, one end being attached to the pivot of a lever that forms part of the escapement linkage, the other to a disk that can be rotated in small steps by a solenoid-operated “stepper motor”. This allows the period of the pendulum to be adjusted by changing the torque, under the control of a system that compares the pendulum phase to a time standard (originally a daily pulse sent out over the telegraph network at 10.00 GMT).Behind the pendulum and near its top is a standard aneroid barometer, and below that a mercury thermometer. These would have been used when checking the clocks’ rate, which depends on both atmospheric temperature and pressure.To the left of the pendulum is the Civil Time Unit (CTU). This is essentially a clock that receives a pulse every second from the pendulum and keeps track of local time, GMT or BST depending on the season, to control the pulses sent to Great George to make it chime on the hours, 0700 through 2100 except Sundays. The CTU was driven by its own electromagnet.On the right is the Greenwich Time Unit (GTU), which essentially kept GMT by counting seconds impulses but also controlled the sequencing of the synchronising system around 10.00 am GMT every day. Again, the GTU had its own electromagnet drive.Behind the wall to which the clock was mounted there was a Control Box that housed several terminal frames, some relays, and ancillary components, that were connected to contacts on the TUs by wires going through the wall. Most of this has now been lost. The clock and its circuits were power by a 24 volt lead-acid battery, possibly also housed in this room. This Control Box has also been recovered and will be installed beside the clock case to house support electronics.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:32 UTC on Sunday, 28 January 2024.For the full current version of the article, see David Robertson (engineer) on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm Kimberly Standard.

Podcast: This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with William D. Glenn about his latest book, I Came Here Seeking a Person: A Vital Story of Grace; One Gay Man's Spiritual Journey, published by Paulist Press. William D. Glenn, a psychotherapist and spiritual director, is a longtime leader in the LGBTQ+ community. Influenced by Thomas Merton, Carl Jung, the Society of Jesus and Queer Culture, Bill elucidates moments in his life from his childhood in an Irish Catholic family mid-20th century through his nearly decade as a Jesuit, to his subsequent life as a sober, out, married gay man. Former president of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, executive director of Continuum HIV Services, Bill is currently the chair of the board of trustees of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, an inter-religious graduate university. A co-founder of the Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies at the Pacific School of Religion, he has focused on the intersection of queer and soul for the past four decades. I Came Here Seeking a Person: One Gay Man's Spiritual Journey is Bill's interior-focused memoir: this volume details his complex journey of faith—in practice—over the span of his lifetime. Shaped by loving and courageous individuals and scores of writers—spiritual, intellectual, cultural, psychological, imaginative—whose words have formed, instructed, confronted and healed. His book is invitational, accessible and a true story of grace. After the main podcast conversation, we include a recording of a book reading event that Bill Glenn gave at Many Rivers Books & Tea in Sebastopol, CA, on January 19th, 2023. The segment includes a riveting reading from a chapter of his book as well as an extended question and answer session. More information about William D. Glenn's work can be found at: Bill Glenn's website: www.williamdglenn.com, Bill Glenn at the GTU: www.gtu.edu.

Katia Capprelli and Charlie Streicher from Stratus Racing join the guys to discuss racing endeavors. Stratus Racing campaigns two cars in WRL's GTU class as well as competes in the 25hr of Thunderhill. Be sure to head over to https://www.mypetrolbox.com/ and use our code "TTP15" for 15% off your first box and everything available in the store. Use the code TenTenths for a free window mount when you buy an ApexPro data unit at https://apextrackcoach.com/

This lecture was given on October 15, 2022 as part of the Fall Thomistic Circles conference, "Life in the Cosmos: Contemporary Science, Philosophy, and Theology on the Origin and Persistence of Life on Earth(and Beyond?)." The two-day conference at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. featured a stellar, cross-disciplinary lineup of speakers: scientists Jonathan Lunine (Cornell University) and Maureen Condic (University of Utah), philosopher Christopher Frey (University of South Carolina), and theologian Fr. Mauriusz Tabaczek, O.P. (Angelicum). This conference is part of the Thomistic Institute's Scientia Project. For more information on upcoming events, visit thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Fr. Mariusz Tabaczek, O.P. is a Polish Dominican and theologian. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophical theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA and a Church Licentiate from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. After his studies at the GTU and a fellowship at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Studies, he returned to Poland. For three years he worked as a researcher at the Thomistic Institute in Warsaw, a lecturer at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Warsaw and the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Krakow, and a director of the Studium Dominicanum in Warsaw. He then moved to Rome where he serves as a professor of theology at the Angelicum and a researcher for the Thomistic Institute Angelicum. He is interested in the science-theology dialogue, especially in the issues concerning science and creation theology, divine action, and evolutionary theory. His research also goes to other subjects related to systematic, fundamental, and natural theology, philosophy of nature, philosophy of science (philosophy of biology, in particular), philosophy of causation, and metaphysics. His works address a whole range of topics, including: the notion of species, metaphysics of evolutionary transitions, concurrence of divine and natural causes in evolutionary transitions, definition and role of chance and teleology in evolution, classical and new hylomorphism, classical and contemporary (analytical) concepts of causation, emergence, science-oriented panentheism and its critique, and various aspects of divine action in the universe. He published a number of articles on metaphysics and the issues concerning the relation between theology and science in Zygon, Theology and Science, Scientia et Fides, Nova et Vetera, Forum Philosophicum, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Sophia, and Polish Annals of Philosophy. He coauthored two chapters in the second edition of Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction (ed. by Gary Ferngren) and has written the entry on “Emergence” for the PalgraveEncyclopedia of the Possible. He is also the author of two monographs. The first, entitled Emergence: Towards A New Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science, was published in 2019 and was announced as one of the best metaphysics books to read in 2019 by Bookauthority. The second book, Divine Action and Emergence: An Alternative to Panentheism (published in 2021), offers a critical analysis of the theory of divine action based on the notion of emergent phenomena and provides a constructive proposal of a theological reinterpretation of divine action in emergence from the point of view of the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of philosophy and theology.

This talk was given on July 16, 2022 at the Fourth Annual Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: MARIUSZ TABACZEK, O.P., is a Polish Dominican and theologian. He holds Ph.D. in philosophical theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA and Church Licentiate from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. After his studies at the GTU and a fellowship at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Studies he returned to Poland. For three years he worked as a researcher at the Thomistic Institute in Warsaw (Poland), a lecturer at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Warsaw and the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Krakow, and a director of Studium Dominicanum in Warsaw. He then moved to Rome where he became a professor of theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He is also a researcher at the Thomistic Institute at the same University. One of the hallmarks of modern science is the ability to explain the workings of nature by detailed study of its pieces and parts. Organisms are understood as combinations of organ systems, which are made up of tissues, which are made up of cells, which are made of up complex chemicals, then atoms, and more fundamental particles. As successful as this methodological reductionism has been, it is still an open question how complete it can be. Can everything about complex biological systems be reduced to chemistry, and every detail of chemistry explained from fundamental physics? Do the organization and complexity of higher-level systems require additional tools to complete our understanding of the natural world? Do the answers to these scientific questions work for or against an Aristotelian and Thomistic understanding of nature and natural kinds, and how might those classical ideas be of use in contemporary science? The Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium gathers expert scientists and philosophers to discuss the potential compatibility and mutual enrichment of the study of Aquinas' philosophy of nature and various forms of modern scientific knowledge in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology. The 2022 symposium included a day of lectures geared towards an introduction to Thomistic philosophy and the history of science, with a focus on complexity, simplicity and emergence. The rest of the symposium will have scientific experts discussing the understanding of complexity and simplicity in their own fields with one another and with philosophers.

Potentially one of the top three moments in all of GTU history on this episode. Atta boy, Foltz - atta boy.

Join the Brain Trust meeting as we develop the next series to join the GTU - "The Special Nerds Podcast".

We talk with Walt Berchak a man who had a part in restoring history in the #92 Firestone Red Rx-7 known as Lulu.

You know her, we love her - the host of GIRL TIMES Razcas joins the show tonight to spend some time with the GTU and talk, you know... nothing.

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time - Mk:12:38-44 - Mark's Poor Widow: A Cautionary Tale - And an Exhortation Michele Connolly rsj is a Sister of St Joseph of Lochinvar in the Hunter Valley. She is an Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Biblical Studies Discipline Coordinator at the Sydney College of Divinity and lectures in Biblical Studies at Catholic Institute of Sydney, a pontifical institute of theology. After teaching in secondary schools for about ten years, she studied theology, graduating in 2008 with the PhD from GTU, Berkeley, CA. Michele's principal area of interest is the Gospel of Mark. In 2018 her doctoral thesis was published by T&T Clark, under the title, Disorderly Women and the Order of God: An Australian Feminist Reading of the Gospel of Mark. Michele speaks regularly around Australia at conferences on the Scriptures. Intro: This week our preacher is Sr Michele Connolly, a Sister of St Joseph of Lochinvar. Michele lectures in Biblical Studies at the Catholic Institute of Sydney and teaches in many adult education programmes in Sydney and beyond. Michele's homily today will draw on work she did for her PhD thesis, published in her book Disorderly Women and the Order of God: An Australian Feminist Reading of the Gospel of Mark.

We sit down with Reed Kryder from Kryder Racing and boy did we learn a lot!  What a background! Reed's a former IMSA and SCCA driver who now coaches aspiring racers and owns Kyder Racing which provides car set up services, offers an arrive and drive program, and builds cars for customers.We talk about Reed getting his old GTU car back on track for a vintage race, Reed's background at Goodyear, and get his insights into better driving.  Reed is responsible for the Test & Tune events at Nelson Ledges Road Course which offers a street car day and race car day each month. Reed's advice on getting better?Work to get consistent and identify where your issues are (braking, knowing the apex, driving line, etc).  He also suggests running 4-6 laps, make adjustments and repeat.  Plus, he shares so much more!  Check your tires after a session - which are hotter?  Hotter tires are the ones that are sliding on the track.  Reed says, a lot of racing is passion - what's your passion?  Go and do that.Kryder Racing WebsiteCall 330-854-4889 to learn more about Kryder Racing

"Keep your personal life private, what people don't know, they can't ruin." - Unknown. Nah ada pepatah bilang kaya gtu, maksudnya apa sih? Kalian pasti punya keinginan dan pasti udah punya planning dong buat ngeraih keinginan itu? udah punya cara dong buat kesana dan punya senjata rahasianya kan? Jangan di sebarin. why? karena orang ga akan peduli atau malah akan ngehancurin kebahagiaan kalian yang sudah kalian bangun. Gtu deh intinya. Kalau mau lebih jelas silahkan disimak ges, takis. Ciaoo~ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gaboeds/support

How do we make meaning of psychedelic experiences? Dr. Sam S. B. Shonkoff, Jewish scholar at GTU, helps redefine healing through the lenses of psychedelic experiences and spiritual traditions. We talk about mysticism, divinity, Neo-Hasidism, religious interpretations, guides, and preparation in connection with psychedelic experiences: Intro (0:00 – 2:00) His Background (2:01 – 4:42) Defining a Mystical Experience (4:43 – 10:51) Psychedelics and the Neo-Hasidic Tradition (10:52 – 17:49) How Does the Community View Psychedelics (17:50 – 22:31) The Mystical Part of Wellness (22:32 – 28:29) Psychedelic Chaplaincy (28:30 – 36:14) End (36:15 – 40:17)

暗号資産（仮想通貨）・ブロックチェーンに特化した幻冬舎のメディア「あたらしい経済 https://www.neweconomy.jp/ 」がおくる、ラジオ番組です。毎日最新ニュース解説とコラムをお届けします。 ・ソラナ、a16zやPolychainらから約343億円調達 ・ユニセフ、ブロックチェーンスタートアップ3社へ30万ドル投資 ・ウィンクルボス兄弟のジェミナイ、暗号資産カストディShard X買収 ・米国銀行協会、CBDCに疑問を呈する証言書提出 ・コンコーディウム、メインネットと「GTU」のローンチを発表 ・人気ロックバンド「UVERworld」ボーカルTAKUYA∞がNFTフォトアート ・パリス・ヒルトン、投資家およびアドバイザーとしてオリジンに参加 ・IBMとスペイン海産大手、海産物のトレーサビリティを保証 ・コインチェックNFT、SKE48のデジタルトレカ取扱いへ ・日本人初のNHLフォワード選手を目指す三浦優希選手、FiNANCiEでトークン発行 ニュースの詳細や、アーカイブやその他の記事はこちらから https://www.neweconomy.jp/

Are we leveraging the power we've been given to serve other people? Message by Christopher Hilken. Video available on YouTube at https://youtu.be/cmgo8mo-GtU

On this episode of StadiumCast, Butters & John are back to kick off a new Season of StadiumCast. We bid farewell to AJ as he begins his professional Magikarp JUMP career. Pikachu gets A FLOWER CROWN!!! We cover the spring events coming up in Pokémon GO and discuss the different targets for the competitive battling community. An exclusive interview with the GTU 6 Winners The Grotesque Sausages. We finally get on a socially distanced ride into Speculation Station to discuss the implications of the Switch Timer in Trainer Battles being cut in half.Current EventsGBL Shifts to Master League & Master League Classic....but GREAT LEAGUENew Attack UpdatesNew GBL CupsSpring gets Sprung for XL ChanseyXL CHANSEYMega LopunnyOther XL TargetsTeam GO Rocket is Back with Giovanni & Special ResearchSilph Arena April EventsPrismatic Cup has us mesmerizedSilph Arena Regionals are ComingChampion Spotlight - The Grotesque Sausages Win GTU 6Speculation Station - The Switch Timer is CUT IN HALF!!! But, for how long???Intro/Outro Music - Orbits by Toni Leys @tonileys on Twitter || Credit: https://diversity.moeTransitions & Sound Effects by Epidemic Sound || https://www.epidemicsound.comSupport the Show on Patreon || www.patreon.com/GOStadiumJoin our Discord || https://invite.gg/gostadiumCheck out our Fellow Podcasters: Pokémon Professor NetworkBattle Science PodcastThe Battle Catz PodcastHosts - 2OButters & JRHonda121Audio Editing by Ken Pescatore of LuredUpShow Art by KitsuneKurisu & Rambling Rabbit 

 What is really at question is the American way of life. What is really at question is whether Americans already have an identity or are still sufficiently flexible to achieve one. This is a painfully complicated question, for what now appears to be the American identity is really a bewildering and sometimes demoralizing blend of nostalgia and opportunism. ––James BaldwinIn recent months, shows about Jewish thought and theology (Pretend it’s a City, Unorthodox) have populated Netflix’s “Trending Now” tab. But what does it mean to be an American Jew in 2021? Why are many Jews today turning towards Hasidism and more conservative forms of religion in a time of unprecedented secularism? Are spirituality and personal faith compatible with traditional Jewish precepts? Why is it the case that Jews have both benefited from and been victimized by white nationalism? And how does Zionism, Jewish nationalism, fit into this story?To think about these questions, Podcast Editor Josh Wagner spoke with Sam Shonkoff, Professor Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, California as well as two of his students. Sam’s research delves into the intersection between secular spiritual practices and the contemporary Hasidic movement, especially in the thought of not-quite theologian Martin Buber. For Buber, religion was less about acting according to the letter of the law than cultivating a sense of “embodied theology” in the everyday––faith as less of a regulating authority than source of spiritual transformation (tiqqun). His students, Eva Sturm-Gross and Jonah Gelfand both took Sam’s Jewish Mysticism seminar at Oberlin College, and became fascinated with the downright CJS - People odd and weird mystics in Jewish thought. Eva is a junior from Vermont who works at a bakery and is majoring in Studio Art and Religion with a minor in Jewish Studies. Jonah just graduated from Oberlin last June and has followed Sam to the GTU and hopes to continue his personal and professional engagement with Jewish thought. Both Eva and Jonah grew up as secular Reform Jews, yet have decided to become more seriously devout. While their experience cannot speak for all American Jews, Sam, Eva, and Jonah tell a story about their return to a practical faith in a time of uncertainty and doubt.To find out more, listen to the episode on Podbean, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you usually find your podcasts! Links: Sam’s latest book on contemporary Hasidism, edited with Rabbi Ariel Evan Mayse: Hasidism: Writings on Devotion, Community, and Life in the Modern World The book on top of Sam’s desk at the time of recording this episode: The Obligated SelfMaternal Subjectivity and Jewish Thought by Mara H. Benjamin Eva’s art InstagramMartin Buber’s I and Thou

Podcast: This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Richard Whittaker in which he brings his considerable interviewing skills to bear on interviewing The Mystical Positivist hosts, Stuart Goodnick and Robert Schmidt, Spiritual Director of Tayu Meditation Center. Richard Whittaker is the co-founder, with Rue Harrison, of the non-profit "Society for theReCognition of Art" and founding editor in 1998 of the magazine works & conversations. Earlier he founded The Secret Alameda [published from 1990-96]. He is also the West Coast editor of Parabola Magazine. Although Whittaker has a background in philosophy [BA] and clinical psychology [MA] and has done graduate work at the GTU in Berkeley, his connections with art go back over forty years including photography, ceramics, painting and sculpture. More information about Richard Whittaker's work can be found at: works & conversations online: www.conversations.org, Interview with Richard Whittaker on ServiceSpace: www.servicespace.org.

This week, Pastor Dan Senter interviews Victoria Price about her three-part series.Adapting to the need for physical distancing, a resurgence of the old televangelism approach is having its day. How is on-line religion evolving, and will it meet the challenges and opportunities of our time?Series Host: Victoria Price, PhD Student in Hindu Studies, GTU.Curator & Host: Rev. Dan Senter, Our Savior's of Lafayette & Creekside Commons 

Adapting to the need for physical distancing, a resurgence of the old televangelism approach is having its day. How is on-line religion evolving, and will it meet the challenges and opportunities of our time?Host: Victoria Price, PhD Student in Hindu Studies, GTU.Send your questions to SoulForum@oslc.net with “S1E3” in the subject line and you may be selected to join the speaker in a live Q/A Zoom Forum.Curator: Rev. Dan Senter, Our Savior's of Lafayette & Creekside Commons 

Adapting to the need for physical distancing, a resurgence of the old televangelism approach is having its day. How is on-line religion evolving, and will it meet the challenges and opportunities of our time? Part 2 of 3 in this series.Send questions to SoulForum@oslc.net  and you may be selected to join the speaker in a live Q/A Zoom forum.Host: Victoria Price, PhD Student in Hindu Studies, GTU.Curator: Rev. Dan Senter

Adapting to the need for physical distancing, a resurgence of the old televangelism approach is having its day. How is on-line religion evolving, and will it meet the challenges and opportunities of our time? Host: Victoria Price, PhD Student in Hindu Studies, GTU.Send questions to SoulForum@oslc.net  and you may be selected to join the speaker in a live Q/A Zoom Forum.Curator: Rev. Dan Senter

Bill Auberlen joins us for a success-themed edition of My Racing Life And Career after taking ownership of the record for all-time major sports car wins in North America, and goes well beyond those 61 victories as he shares insights on his family roots, long development period in IMSA's GTU category, and weaves through a series of fascinating stories of highs and lows--including a flirtation with IndyCar--through five decades of pro racing. Subscribe: https://marshallpruettpodcast.com/subscribe Join our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/MarshallPruettPodcast

Rita D. Sherma is founding Director and Associate Professor at the Mira & Ajay Shingal Center for Dharma Studies; Core Doctoral Faculty; and Co-Chair of the Sustainability 360 Initiative at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. Formerly, she was the Swami Vivekananda Visiting Professor in Hindu Studies at USC. She holds an MA in Women’s Studies in Religion, and a PhD in Theology & Ethics from Claremont Graduate University. She also co-founded the American Academy of Religion’s Hinduism Program Unit and is the founding Vice President of DANAM (Dharma Academy of North America)—a scholarly society for research on Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religious & interreligious studies. Dr. Sherma has authored, edited or co-edited several books and is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Dharma Studies. We spoke about the unique Hindu Chaplaincy program she recently started at GTU, as well as other subjects related to Hinduism, India and academia. Learn more about Rita Sherma here: www.gtu.edu/academics/rita-sherma

Our distinguished panel—led by Michael Pappas and which includes Mahjabeen Dhala, a religious motivational speaker, who is pursuing a doctorate at the Graduate Theological Union; the Rt. Reverend William Swing, president and founding trustee of the United Religions Initiative (URI), and Sam Berrin Shonkoff, Ph.D. assistant professor of Jewish studies at GTU—will discuss the connections among the the Abrahamic faiths, the unfortunate general lack of knowledge of the others' histories, cultures, and beliefs, and how increased understanding, tolerance, acceptance, respect, etc. among all faiths could help bring about a more peaceful world. They will also share expressions of faith and how Interfaith communities interact in the midst of the horrendous COVID-19 crises. MLF ORGANIZER Celia Menczel NOTES MLF: Middle East Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Podcast: This week we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Richard Whittaker about the nature of Aesthetic Thought, the connection of Numinous in artistic expression, and the exquisite sensitivity of the human instrument when unmediated by conceptual association. Richard Whittaker is the co-founder, with Rue Harrison, of the non-profit "Society for theReCognition of Art" and founding editor in 1998 of the magazine works & conversations. Earlier he founded The Secret Alameda [published from 1990-96]. He is also the West Coast editor of Parabola Magazine. Although Whittaker has a background in philosophy [BA] and clinical psychology [MA] and has done graduate work at the GTU in Berkeley, his connections with art go back over forty years including photography, ceramics, painting and sculpture. In answer to the question of why he started an art magazine, Richard says: A central motivation was my dismay at what I found missing in the art world as I began exploring it in 1980. [Before I'd simply done art on my own.] Nowhere did I find any resonance in the writing of critics and art theorists for what Bruce Nauman expressed (with considerable ambivalence) in an early piece: 'The true artist helps the world by expressing mystic truths.' Such an elevated thought could not be taken seriously in 1980. In 1967, the ground for such a proclamation was already very shaky. Was it a joke? And yet my own experiences in the face of beauty (especially of light) were such that I felt compelled to find a way of honoring them. Surely, the experience of the presence of the numinous had not gotten old. It had only gone missing somehow. What I found lacking in art world discourse was not difficult to find when I turned to artists themselves. A common understanding was often near at hand. And here was the material I wanted to help get into circulation through the public space of a magazine. "Since then, my focus has widened to include broader examples of the transformative power of creativity used in the service of a greater good. This possibility is not limited to artists. AK Coomaraswamy's formulation, taken from his study of traditional societies, puts it well: 'The artist is not a special person, but each person is a special kind of artist.' More information about Richard Whittaker's work can be found at: works & conversations online: www.conversations.org, Interview with Richard Whittaker on ServiceSpace: www.servicespace.org.

Sports car champion Tommy Kendall and his former chief mechanic Dan Binks reunited at Laguna Seca in Monterey in August of 2019 to run the IMSA Mazda RX-7 GTU entry for the first time since winning championships together in the 1980s. Tears were shed in the funny and emotional visit to The Marshall Pruett Podcast as two titans of motor racing share stories from IMSA's golden era. Subscribe: https://marshallpruettpodcast.com/subscribe Join our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/MarshallPruettPodcast

GTU innovation Innovation and Startup Centre did organized a webinar to mentor startups working towards solutions to Combat COVID-19. The major area covered during the session was on " Design Innovations and Solutions around Covid -19. The session was hosted by Mr. Saurabh Sahu and delivered by product design expert Mr. Bhaskar Bhatt. He has vast experience in design field and medical devices. He is previously associated with premier Design institutes like IIT Gandhinagar . NID Ahmedabad ,ISID Mumbai. He is the founder of Crevolve design Technologies. The Major part of this quick session contains the questions by the early adopters and young innovators. You will get great insights into current situation on the other side of the table where people are working to get some awesome solutions developed to fight against this Novel Covid - 19. Note: This was an instant grab from a webinar for the exclusive episode on Covid - 19, so please excuse the noise around. Hope you learn and enjoy the podcast. Wish you Most and More. Stay Safe, Stay Home !! #StartupPodcast #StartupEngineering #DhananjaySuthar --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dhananjaysuthar/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dhananjaysuthar/support

This talk was given as part of the Thomistic Institute Conference "Thomas Aquinas on Creation and Nature" held at the Angelicum in Rome on 3-5 October 2019. Fr. Mariusz Tabaczek is a Polish Dominican. He earned his PhD in philosophical and systematic theology from GTU in Berkeley, CA. He is currently working as a researcher at the Thomistic Institute in Warsaw, Poland. He also teach at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Warsaw and in the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Cracow. he is also a director of Studium Dominicanum in Warsaw.

Robert John Russell is the current Ian G. Barbour Professor of Theology and Science at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. Since 1981, Dr. Russell has served as both founding director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) and professor of theology and science at the GTU. Holding a PhD in physics and… Read more about Robert J. Russell: Cosmology, Divine Action, & Eschatology

There's never a dull moment in the automotive industry — recalls to new technology, debuting vehicles to car shows. In many ways, the world revolves around transportation.  Co-hosts Bruch Aldrich and James Raia discuss several issues on Episode #80 of The Weekly Driver Podcast. The Tu Simple autonomous truck was displayed the GTU conference in San Jose, Calif. Image © James Raia/2019 As a weekly automotive columnist for Bay Area News Group (the San Jose Mercury and East Bay Times in Walnut Creek), I periodically receive letters from readers. Last week, two letters referenced my recent review of the 2019 Toyota Camry. Another reader emailed asking advice about her ailing more than 20-year-old Ford Escort. Bruce has the perfect answers. We also discuss several other topics: * The latest maneuverings of Elon Musk, the always controversial founder of Tesla; * The new automotive season at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. (It will conclude in September with the return of IndyCar racing; * A recap of our recent visit to the GTU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. The Weekly Driver encourages and appreciates feedback from our listeners. Please forward episode links to family, friends and colleagues. And you are welcome to repost links from the podcast to your social media accounts. Support our podcast by shopping on Amazon.com. Please send comments and suggestions for new episodes to James Raia via email: james@jamesraia.com. All episodes of the podcast are archived on www.theweeklydriver.com/podcast Every episode is also available on your preferred podcast platform: Google Play iTunes Spotify Stitcher The Weekly Driver Podcast is presented by www.americanmuscle.com.  

A live panel with five theologians about angels in Judaism, Mormonism, and "Angels in America." (Recorded at Berkeley Rep May 14, 2018 and co-produced with the Graduate Theological Union) Moderator: - Robert A. Rees is the director of Mormon studies at the Graduate Theological Union. Dr. Rees has taught at UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Berkeley, and was a Fulbright Professor of American Studies at Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania. Rees has taught classes in Mormon studies at the GTU since 2010, and has published widely on Mormon and religious studies, as well as on issues of politics, culture, literary studies, and gender and sexuality studies. Dr. Rees served as director of continuing education in the arts and humanities at UCLA, where he was also assistant dean of fine arts and director of the UCLA-Cambridge Program and the UCLA Royal College of Art and Royal College of Music programs in London. Long active in interfaith work, Rees served as president of the University Religious Conference at UC Santa Cruz and, more recently, on the board of the Marin Interfaith Council. He is the cofounder and vice president of the Liahona Children’s Foundation, a humanitarian organization that addresses malnutrition in the developing world. Bob is a key member of the Bay Area Mormon Studies Council, which is working with the GTU and the wider Mormon community to establish an academic chair in Mormon studies at the GTU. Panelists: - Kathryn Loosli Pritchett is a writer living in Oakland, California. A journalist for many years, she is currently working on a novel inspired by her 19th century Mormon polygamous ancestors. She currently serves as a leader in the Oakland, California Stake Relief Society (the Mormon women’s auxiliary). Together with her husband M.J., she developed and teaches a course on Women in the Mormon Church for the LDS Institute of Religion in Berkeley. - M.J. Pritchett is an attorney practicing law in San Francisco, California. He served as the Bishop (pastor) of the Oakland First Ward congregation (which meets adjacent to the Oakland Temple) for a 5 year term in the late 1990s. MJ served a two-year mission to South Korea in 1976-77. For the past ten years he has taught an evening course on various theological, cultural and historical topics related to Mormonism at the LDS Institute of Religion in Berkeley. - Naomi Seidman is Koret Professor of Jewish Culture at the Graduate Theological Union, NEH Senior Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow. Her recent book, The Marriage Plot, Or, How Jews Fell in Love with Love, and with Literature, includes a reading of Angels in America as an expression of the persistence of the genealogical impulse in post-traditional societies. - Daniel Matt, one of the world’s leading authorities on Kabbalah, has been featured in Time Magazine and has appeared on National Public Radio and the History Channel. He has published over a dozen books, including The Essential Kabbalah (translated into seven languages), Zohar: Annotated and Explained, and God and the Big Bang: Discovering Harmony between Science and Spirituality. Recently, Daniel completed an 18-year project of translating and annotating the Zohar. For twenty years, Daniel served as professor at the Center for Jewish Studies, Graduate Theological Union, in Berkeley. He has also taught at Stanford and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Daniel lives in Berkeley with his wife Hana. Get tickets to the show at www.berkeleyrep.org

Enjoy the great diversity of sounds produced by IMSA GTP, GTO, GTU, Trans-Am, and related sports car machinery from the 2016 edition of the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion. Visit https://www.facebook.com/MarshallPruettPodcast for our full podcast archives. Subscribe: Apple (https://tinyurl.com/yaafkvch)  Android (https://tinyurl.com/yconvyl3)  Google (https://tinyurl.com/y8qtcuax)  Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/yby3lzr2)

Do you like nerdy theological conversations that will blow your mind? You are in luck. Rev. Dr. Jay E. Johnson, from the Pacific School of Religion, is on the podcast talking about queer theology, embodiment, sexuality, Eucharistic dance parties, and what the church needs to learn about sex and sexuality. Plus, Jay gives us some tips to be better allies. He also discusses he last two books, Peculiar Faith: Queer Theology for Christian Witness and Divine Communion: A Eucharistic Theology of Sexual Intimacy. You can check out his website, peculiarfaith.com or the epic live podcast he did at GTU. Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Bazian is co-founder of Zaytuna College, an innovative Muslim liberal arts college in Berkeley and the first accredited Muslim undergraduate college in the U.S. He is also senior lecturer in Depts. of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Method to the madness is next. Speaker 2:No one's listening to method to the madness. At Biweekly Public Affairs show on k a l ex Berkeley celebrating bay area innovators. Today you see Berkeley Student Anna Sterling interviews Dr Houghton Bosnian cofounder of say Tuna College, [00:00:30] the first accredited Muslim college in the United States where he teaches Islamic law and theology. He's also senior lecturer in Near Eastern Studies and ethnic studies here at UC Berkeley. Speaker 3:Okay. Speaker 1:Welcome to the show Dr. Horton Bosnian. We're here today to talk about the Tuna College, which is here in Berkeley, [00:01:00] uh, the first accredited Muslim college in the United States. What was the impetus for starting the college? Speaker 4:Thank you for having me first, um, to the show, the impetus for the college cam as a result of the increasing a number of Muslim communities both here in the bay area and across the country, and the need to address the multifaceted challenges that are meeting the communities from, uh, [00:01:30] the growing number of centers that require, uh, individuals who are trained both in Islamic tradition, but also aware of the various, uh, issues that come out of the, uh, American context and living within such a rabid, fast paced society. Uh, so the impetus for it is, uh, comes out from really addressing this vast need. Second aspect is that the ability of religious leaders and leaders to come from [00:02:00] abroad, uh, was increasingly, uh, very challenging in terms of attempt to meet the needs. Uh, and I think this is also a normative process that other religious communities historically have, uh, been through. Speaker 4:The Catholics used to get there, uh, ministers and priests from, uh, Ireland or from Italy. And as the patterns of immigration settlements and second generation, third generation, uh, the need was outstripping the ability [00:02:30] to provide them, bring individuals from, uh, abroad as well as the fact that individuals were born in this country required a person who could come in with an understanding of what are the particular needs that might not be transferable from other countries, whether it's Italy or Ireland at the time and for the Muslim community. Likewise, uh, that was something that they were facing Speaker 1:and it started out as a seminary originally and then became a Muslim college, Speaker 4:[00:03:00] a Liberal Arts College. What's the mix there? Why was that move important? Initially we were thinking about the seminary in order to train individuals in a seminary type of a setting with the specifically religious focus exclusively. But as we looked at where the community's at, the top of training that is needed to have individuals finish a seminary degree, which is a graduate degree. [00:03:30] We felt that the prerequisites almost are four to five years in the making and are a pipeline of individuals who might come into a very narrowly structured a seminary program would be a challenge considering where we are at in terms of the United States. So we had to step back and think of a college with a liberal arts degree. And then from that we hope that students who graduate, we'll rotate a number of fields [00:04:00] and one of the fields that they might go into, it will be a seminary type, whether to go to GTU, Hartford seminary or some of the other seminaries around the country. Speaker 4:And also in the hope for us in the future to have a master phd program where students who want to be trained in a seminary setting can do so under the umbrella of the GTU Gray with theological union. So we had to step back in order for us to move forward and stepping back by setting up a this liberal arts [00:04:30] degree, we need students who have a strong hold in the Arabic language. So our students now have to finish five years of Arabic. So once they go into a seminary or graduate degree, they already have the prerequisites and they don't have to start from scratch. So that's the a shift in the strategy, not in the shift in what we are hoping to accomplish with a small subset of the graduates. And it's not open to just Muslims, it's open to everyone. Anyone who's interested in having [00:05:00] a liberal arts degree is welcome and hopefully when we get to the master phd track, likewise, anyone who wants to have a quality education is welcome. Speaker 4:I think we're at 50 55% women, 45% men. We're having some interest from Christian colleges that are interested in having a way to dialogue but also as a way to have education where they could send their students in there. So I think this will come. We had actually a a conference between our students and their students. So I think in our relationship [00:05:30] with GTU has been great. All of the nine different denominations at GTU have embraced us now with the two buildings that we own. We're both GTU on buildings that they sold to us. PSR sold us the LACAN building, which is at the corner and then the Prentice Kent School of Theology Corner, uh, building that yellow corner building Euclid, they did not bought it on the market. They actually up a project say we want to sell the building. You got to love Franciscans. Yeah. So, [00:06:00] so they sold us a building. Speaker 4:They invited at one and then when they, when we signed the contract, they had a, a dinner for us and one of the priests gave a lecture on Islam and on the wall they had a photograph of medical idol of Egypt and San Francis embracing because the assumption is that St Francis was one of the key figures that ended the crusades because he finished, he went and visited the medical idle in Egypt at the time and then came back to the pool. And as the pool to provide [00:06:30] a way for people to repent without having to go on a crusade. And that's what's the, a Franciscan sec developed out of San Francis visit to Egypt and his encounter with AMAG. So they had that post or that picture on the wall and they gave it as a gift to us as well. I didn't know that St Francis is my favorite saint. He's kind of like within the Catholic digital, he's accredited of shifting because without the possibility of having to go to some other place [00:07:00] to, to cleanse yourself and repent, then people were still being sent to the Crusades. So St Francis upon returning from Egypt, he actually asked for that to be the way. Yeah. And the pope gave him that. Speaker 1:Um, one thing that I thought was interesting on the website is it mention, it had a list of perennial faculty sort of citing, you know, a long list of Muslim thinkers and intellectuals. What's the purpose of sort of connecting to that past? What do you sort of hope to convey to the students of today living in Berkeley, [00:07:30] in the bay area? In the center Speaker 4:liberal education or Liberal Arts degree is rooted in the great books of the past. And therefore, even though that in our today fast paced culture, it seems that you are the center of the world. Uh, so we're trying to say that yes, you're the center of the world in one dimension, but everything that you think it's in, you has a long deray to it. Uh, all the way back from the Chinese words to Indian words, to the Greek, to the Romans, [00:08:00] to the Muslim civilization and so on. So it is rooted in linking back to the great traditions in great intellectual contribution, and then to see where these contributions are at by thinking of the perennial faculty or prenatal contribution, and then where you could add your own distinctive aspect upon or building upon what was done in the past. And I think it's a similar to the Catholic tradition. If you say, look at St Mary's College or uh, uh, San John's [00:08:30] and so on, the great books tradition is rooted in there. So in a similar way, we want to convey that there is a tradition within the Islamic pedagogical approach to think of these great books and how to link the students to that tradition Speaker 1:standing on the shoulders of giants. Absolutely. I noticed that this right now the college is around 50 to 60 students, about 60 students, just other Speaker 4:25 for this coming fall. Speaker 1:So it was sort of a tight knit community. What role does the larger [00:09:00] Muslim non Muslim community play at the college? Speaker 4:When we were thinking about where to locate the college, there were a number of possibilities. We had literally offers to go some other places around the country where the land would be almost free if, uh, actually they'll pay you to take it. Uh, we had a location where they had a full college set up with a gym, a swimming pool, housing that was for sale from a to Z. Literally youth pick up the key [00:09:30] and you have a college ready made. Uh, but you know, I assure you it was not one of those Trump's colleges. That was then what we were thinking is that to create a college, you need a hospitable environment. And in looking at many of us, the three founders were here in the bay area, in Mom's age, Hamza myself, that if you want to create a college from scratch, you have two major institutions in the bay area at Berkeley and Stanford. Speaker 4:And therefore by boarding the college next to a major [00:10:00] university, you get the synergy that is there as a result of the intellectual, uh, environment that is there. It also though is an existing Muslim student population that is at the surrounding university in Berkeley. I think approximately 800 Muslim students give or take are here. And then you also have a large Muslim population in the bay area. The study that I did on the bay area Muslim community is about 250,000 with some nine 90 centers in the region. So it is really [00:10:30] having a major intellectual hub in the bay area that is hospitable, that is embracing of diversity and inclusiveness. And that made the choice of the bay area, uh, a foregone conclusion to having the college located in here. Uh, the challenge once again is, uh, we have to compete with Twitter, Facebook, and Google in terms of prices of real estate and being able to really have the buildings are needed. Uh, one is to acquire [00:11:00] building, but also how to expand in the distant future. The major challenge is the cost effectiveness is very high, but once again, location, location, location, and that was one of the major factors. Speaker 1:And what's the average as a tuna student if there is, when are they typically from the bay area or Speaker 4:no, we're getting students from nationally, I think, uh, depends different class, uh, enrollment differ. But in general we get students from across the country, from Florida, from Michigan, from New York, uh, [00:11:30] from New Jersey, Ohio, California. We do have a segment of it. So it's, uh, really a plus section of the Muslim community in the United States. Speaker 1:And what do you hope that they, once they graduate, that they sort of put out into the world, what sort of skills do you hope they, that you've given them? Oh, our mission really is Speaker 4:about graduating morally committed leaders that grounded in Islamic tradition and conversant in the modern contemporary occurrence in our society. So what we want is for them [00:12:00] to lead in whichever place ever career track that they choose. We don't train students for a career. We try. Our education is a commitment to lifelong learning and for them to commit themselves to education as a value in itself. That that is the end. Education is an end by itself and not to think of education and utilitarian function. So we definitely, while we want them to be engaged in society in whichever field and profession [00:12:30] that is not the end of the degree, but rather it should be the beginning of their contribution to society and want them to also act morally and ethically in the society. Uh, so that's what we want them to be. That they are reflective of the grounding that we're giving them in the institution. Speaker 1:I think that idea of the morally committed leader is very interesting. I know that you, you founded the Islamophobia Research and documentation project here at Berkeley, as well as the Islamophobia Studies Journal [00:13:00] as well as you've also contributed a number of opinion columns, you know, about Trump and, and other issues surrounding Islamophobia with this rise of Islamophobic rhetoric, particularly on the campaign trail. What sort of shifts have any have happened at the college to sort of face these new crises? Speaker 4:Well, I don't think there is a shift in the college because I think our curriculum and education we offer, Eh, it will have to stand the test of time, whether [00:13:30] it's Trump or any other person that wants to use racism, discrimination, otherwise nation, uh, want to build a walls on the ground as well as intellectual walls. Our degree will stand the test of time. Now we are aware that we are in a highly tense period where a particular segment of the American society in particular white working class are being stoked into racism, [00:14:00] into discrimination, into pointing their finger at an other ad is the source of their, a loss of economic opportunity that their standard of living has declined, that they're outsourcing of their jobs have been undertaken earnestly from the 70s, 80s on ongoing. So instead of confronting the real issues and who is responsible, who was on the driver's seat, uh, the blame has been stoked strategically so as a wedge issue [00:14:30] to blame on the one hand Latinos that they are the ones that are undermining our economic, uh, opportunities. Speaker 4:Looking at the Muslim community and saying that, uh, this war on terrorism is basically not making us a strong looking at black life matters and the African American community in essence, by blaming them in really racist undertone, uh, by speaking that they are not carrying their weight, that a, there are depending on social welfare. All these are [00:15:00] buzzwords that are using cultural nuances to push a racist discourse and to try to imagine America of the past, uh, that is not tenable and trying to maintain a particular cluster of communities in the u s in a power at a time where the grounds have shifted tremendously. So we are aware of those. And the challenge for us is on the one hand, to document the period we are in terms of Islamophobia and what it's taken, but also how [00:15:30] to develop what I considered to be the new civil and human rights movement in this country that will reclaim the high ground and at the same time to undo the stalking of the white middle class and to actually develop a coalition that will address the largest segment and to point out what are the reasons of the challenges that we are having. Speaker 4:What are the challenges of outsourcing? What are the challenges of the 1% that is basically [00:16:00] running all the way to the bank many times over and then getting, being rescued by the collective taxpayers. So that's the, I would say if there's a single or challenge that is the challenge is how to create a new society, a base on a board that will hold everyone, uh, without anybody trying to book, uh, holes on the bottom of the hole for the ship to sink. And that's how we see the circumstances. And when, as a today's position and how have your students reacted? Well, they're engaged, they're engaged [00:16:30] both in terms of, part of our program requires that the students have to undertake, uh, community service hours and part of community service hours have to be in how they give back and contribute. And on the one hand we have an alternative spring break. Speaker 4:So for example, the number of students went to Ferguson to volunteer to work with habitat for humanity. Another group in the alternative spring break went to Utah. And uh, when, uh, with the National Forest Service [00:17:00] to plan tree and work on the environment. So they're engaged in ways where they could be making the difference as they are developing their or sharpen their intellectual skills. So in essence, they are proactively engaged in order to make a difference and build the bridges that are needed for an imagining of a different America that is inclusive, that is embracing, that also looks for the best interest [00:17:30] of those who have left behind and have fallen through the cracks. And I think that's what we want our students to undertake. Speaker 1:And I saw that recently, last March Zaytuna received the first accredited Muslim college in the u s so what does that mean for the college? Speaker 4:The institution of higher learning have an accreditation. And uh, from the first day we started this project, we wanted the institution to be accredited, in essence, to be admitted and invited to [00:18:00] the diverse academic table of higher education and for a Muslim college to receive accreditation and to sit at the table and offer our own ideas in conversation and in collaboration with other institutions of higher learning. And that process is a, we took it as a challenge for us. And also another opportunity because part of accreditation, you do a self study, you look at your curriculum, you look at your institutions, you look at your financial capacity reporting [00:18:30] and there is about 37 different criteria that you have to fulfill. And we took it seriously that this is an opportunity for us to assess where are we at. And uh, we were engaged with the last, there was an association forcing the schools and colleges, same institution that accredits UC Berkeley. Speaker 4:So we were the fastest institution to begin the accreditation process and achieve accreditation, uh, by the team, the visiting team. In one visit we were able to get accreditation, uh, even UC Berkeley [00:19:00] had to go many times over and some other colleges we were able to achieve it. And, uh, both our curriculum, our, uh, institutional capacity, our finances are very sound. One question that the accreditation committee asked us time and time again because many institution want to get accreditation so they would be able to apply for federal financial aid for students. Now we have made a commitment institutionally that no students will graduate with debt. So we are committed [00:19:30] to students graduating debt free. And as founders we go out and actually appeal to the Muslim community who had part of their financial wellbeing is to give a charitable contribution the terms the cat. So we have been able to develop as a cat fund that provides needy students and any students that have a challenge financially to provide them the resources. Speaker 4:So we actually, when they asked us, are you looking to get federal financial aid? I said, that's really, we [00:20:00] are, we don't want to apply for a federal financial aid. We want our students to graduate that free. We don't believe that you have to be in debt from the cradle to the grave. And I think that is something that we have to offer both institutionally, but also give it as an example of how education can be an avenue for individuals and society to liberate itself from the bondage of financial burden. And I think increasingly our education has become a financial burden where an average [00:20:30] undergrad graduate with $97,000 in debt. And if you go to a master's or phd, it could go into the hundreds of thousand and uh, God forbid you go to the medical school or if you want to train as a lawyer, you actually comes up with maybe 300 to $400,000 in debt if you go to laptop school, which essentially incentivize those individuals who will come out of these institutions to immediately try to stick it to anyone financially. And as such, you lose the bonds of the society [00:21:00] at the foundational level. So that's something that we are committed to it. And I think the accreditation team was taken back because if not every private institution depends heavily on federal financial aid and therefore what you have is a private institution that is uh, loading the students with debt as a way to run the institution. I think ethically and morally that is a wrong approach to higher education in general. Speaker 1:And right now as a tuna, the only Muslim college in the u s or has it sort of inspired [00:21:30] at least ideas for other ones, Speaker 4:it's what we were the only accredited institutions. There is a number of projects that we're hoping that they are on their road to accreditation. There's the American Slavic College in Chicago. They had been longer in place but they went dormant and they'd been back in attempting to get their accreditation process. They have filed, we already sent a letter of support to their accreditation. There is a couple of other institution in the early formative stage. Our expectation as the community increases and the numbers, once [00:22:00] again depending on which a study you look at from two and a half to 3 million to about six or 7 million, you take your number as a in terms of what statistical model you use as the community increases. The needs for such institution will rise and I think we will see in the next few years a number of institution joining Zaytuna and that will be very positive for us as well as the institutions that are coming to provide the services for the community. Speaker 1:Creating perhaps [00:22:30] more of a network there. Speaker 4:Absolutely. We're still, we are right now in discussing as a consortium among Muslim institutions that are either applying or attempting to get into an accreditation and I compare it to, once again, I think we're inspired by the Catholic tradition at a time where the Catholics were in this country that they began to invest in higher education. There were less than one and a half percent of the population. They were facing tremendous racism. If you notice some of the literature around building Catholic churches and Catholic [00:23:00] institutions, if you just take the same texts that were written on Catholics and remove the Catholic Church and the Pope and you just insert Islam and Muslim, you don't have to change much of the literature and at the time they were one and a half percent and they did a, I would say a deliberate strategic initiative in investing in higher education as a way to address their needs and now you look around the country. The Catholic institutions are the premier institutions in the country as well as if you look at their a k through 12 [00:23:30] schools as some of the best schools in this country are run by the Catholics. So in this sense a religious communities, I'm making a path and constructing a way for them both to address their own particular needs, but also contributing to shaping society in general is the longstanding tradition within the American society, but also across across the world. Speaker 1:So do you also sort of take that as inspiration for future plans for [inaudible]? What's next for the college? Speaker 4:Once again, the challenge of keeping the college running is the [00:24:00] biggest challenge right now. Uh, we're a 24, seven fundraising, uh, both to run for operation but also to provide all the needs of the students. There's, you know, we work on a five year plan, uh, acquisition of some housing for students. Uh, also possibly housing for faculty as the need to increase our faculty. One of the biggest challenge and once again in the bay area, it's the cost of housing that is making it prohibitive for us to be able to [00:24:30] attract the faculty talent with the cost bases that we have. So that will be another part of our project. And then looking down the line is to begin the project for uh, having the Master Phd Program and we're already in initial conversation with GTU to join as a member school within the GTU. So that's already in the initial stage of conversation. We will be joining having an master of divinity in Islamic Studies and possibly a phd track a few years after that, [00:25:00] joining them in all of the collaborative projects that they have joining the library. So all those are in the drawing boards for the next five years in terms of where are the steps that are needed. Speaker 1:And right now you offer a Ba, an Islamic law theology with an optional honors program. Speaker 4:It's a Ba in liberal arts with a focus on Islamic law and theology. And there is an honor program where students have to take a particular set of additional courses. We also have actually a, an endowment to, [00:25:30] uh, provide in particular women who want to take a stem track, uh, who want to go to medicine and injury. And we actually have an endowment where they could actually take courses here at Berkeley or city college to augment the Ba degree that we're offering. So they, if they want to apply to an engineering or a medical or MCB and so on, they're are able to do that. So that's already on the books and we're able to offer that for students who are coming in. Speaker 1:So in addition to [00:26:00] the Graduate Theological Union GTU, what are other sort of organizations that you're partnering with the sort of strength in the college? Speaker 4:What do we want? Definitely to have a strong relations with UC Berkeley. So that's something that we look forward to. A GTU, a San Francisco State University, Santa Clara University. Uh, we're working also with a ucs f for the chaplaincy program. So some of our students want to be chaplains in the hospitals. So they have a certification program and we're making the link where students can actually, [00:26:30] uh, they need to do about 80 hours of, uh, supervised chaplaincy training in the hospital. So that is open for them. Uh, in that way we have a relationship with Hartford seminary. So students want to finish from here, can go to Harvard seminary. We have a number of Miranda of understanding with the universities in Turkey. Uh, we had a visit from the, uh, uh, wife of the prime minister of Malaysia who are also likewise looking at cooperation in terms of higher education and [00:27:00] where can we engage in helping, uh, some of their projects. Speaker 4:So once again, these are opportunities that will, uh, continue to expand and we're looking forward to continue to open doors of possibilities for our students and our institution. America has, it's, it's definitely open many possibilities and opportunities for people. So Islam and education go hand in hand. The first word in, uh, in the Koranic revelation was read and therefore there is no such [00:27:30] thing, at least from our perspective, you cannot have an Islam without having it being founded upon education. And therefore we celebrate the history in the past of a Islamic contribution, whether it's in initiating and building libraries. Uh, the notion of a public library is actually originates from the Islamic culture and Islamic civilization because it was such a commitment to public access and universal access to education. So I think being in here, being in the United States [00:28:00] and the impact and the importance of education in the modern age that we can see being in this country, being a Muslim without actually taking to uplift education, but also be a corrective because increasingly education has become corporatized where your knowledge is added to what kind of cubicle you can get. And I think that has, for me, that's a very problematic construct. Not that we don't peep, we don't need individuals to function and create [00:28:30] and work creatively in the economy. But that is not the purpose of education. That's what you do is not that what you know. And I think for us Zaytuna College, if it can help move in a corrective way, the emphasis that we have in education, then I think our impact and contribution will be monumental. Speaker 1:So how can anyone get in touch with Zaytuna or possibly apply? Speaker 4:Well, we're uh, available online so you could access our website, www dot [inaudible] dot edu and [00:29:00] we're also on Twitter, on Facebook. And you could also reach me myself, a hot and on.com on my own website as well as Twitter. And hopefully if, if you would like to be in a place that celebrates education and both knowledge in a triumphant position, uh, Daytona might be the place for you and we will come you to come and visit us for no other reason. That's [inaudible] Speaker 1:and that's a tuna college@zaytuna.edu. Speaker 3:Thank you so much, Dr Bozzi on for being on the show. Thank you [00:29:30] for having, you've been listening to method to the madness to biweekly public affairs show on Speaker 2:k a l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators. Tune in again in two weeks at the same time. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hunter Brayton is a third generation racer from Coldwater, Michigan. His grandfather was a Sprint Car racer who set records around the country and his uncle, Scott Brayton, raced Indy Cars but tragically lost his life at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1996. His father raced in the IMSA series running in GTU and Camel Lite. Hunter started racing at 9 years old in a kart and moved to the national level at the age of 13. He raced SCCA Formula 600 at the age of 15 and that’s where he currently races today.

Rita Sherma. Dr. Sherma is Associate Professor of Dharma Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA, and Director of GTU’s Hindu Studies Initiative. A distinguished scholar and prolific writer, her academic specialties include Hindu Theology and Ethics, Science and Religions, Women and Hindu Goddess Studies and Comparative Theology. We spoke of many topics around religion and academia, especially the treatment of Hinduism in the academy.

Lawyer, TV host, playwright, and author Wajahat Ali joins Method to the Madness to talk about how he went from UC Berkeley undergrad to becoming one of the most well known and well respected voices of moderate American Muslims.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Okay. Speaker 2:You're listening to KLX Berkeley at 90.7 FM and this is method to the madness and shove coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here at Calex celebrating the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your [00:00:30] host, Elliot Huizar and today we have UC Berkeley's own or Jihad Ali, which Ah, Ali is a lawyer, a playwright, an essayist, a. He's appeared in the Washington Post, the Guardian Salon Atlantic. He's a consultant to the USD department. Uh, and currently also his hosts of Al Jazeera, America's social media driven talk show of the stream. And [inaudible] joined us via phone, myself and my partner Lisa Kiefer over phone to talk about the Muslim [00:01:00] American experience in America. And first off we talked about how he grew up as a Muslim American in the bay area. Speaker 3:You know, I was, I am essentially a multi hyphenated multicultural kid, born and raised in the bay area, who, you know, I'm an American Muslim of bucks I need to send and it very much, I am a product of both old school and new school America, right? Old School, American music, traditional immigrant story, new school America, you know, having to danced the [00:01:30] fault lines of this man, a minority majority country, which I think, uh, is the major cultural shift that we are kind of embracing and rejecting as a country right now, which will really speak volumes about how we evolve or devolve as a nation in the next 20 years. And for me, you know, growing up as awkward a fact and in our tradition of South Asian tradition, you never say fed said quote unquote healthy. I was a very, very, very healthy, [00:02:00] awkward, a set of bucks. Speaker 3:Any immigrants whose parents thought it'd be hilarious to teach them only three words of English. And you know, I had tumeric and lentil stands on my shirt. And um, you know, I ended up going to all boys Bowerman Catholic high school. And then I went to UC Berkeley where I ended up, ironically graduated with an English major. So if to actually kind of look at my background, it is very an American background, but totally very culturally specific lens of an American that, uh, is seen right now in [00:02:30] this moment in history as an outsider, as an other, as a threat, as an antagonist. You know, the Muslim boogeyman. And I think what's interesting is this is nothing really new. If we kind of look back in American history, this has happened before to the LGBT community still happens. Mexican immigrants, African-Americans, Japanese Americans, Irish Catholics and Jewish Americans. And for me, just by virtue of growing up, I had a decision to make whether or not I was going to share my story and engage with people or whether I was going to compartmentalize these different aspects of my t my right, [00:03:00] yes. Speaker 3:Shamed my brown Nester or be ashamed of my mostly mean this or be ashamed of my Americanist. And then, you know, I just decided early on, I think that by virtue, by early on, I mean like eventually you grow up and you realize, I'm always going to be a Dorky outlier. Like, I'm never going to be like that dude who gets like Jessica though. Like you know the hot white girl and he gets invited to like join the all star track team or football team. I'm always going to be that awkward multi-syllabic healthy kid. And I think somewhere in college [00:03:30] I made peace with the fact that I'm never going to fit into this model, a narrative of a quote unquote America that didn't represent me and I was just going to be myself and let my freak flag fly. And the reason why I mentioned that is kind of, this was a gradual evolution, right? Speaker 3:Cause I was always an outlier, but I was always this guy who wanted to share my stories, my culture, my identity, my experiences with my classmates and I always did. And growing up in the bay area, like you guys know, it's such an ethnically diverse community [00:04:00] that you're forced to interact with people who are different than you. And I kind of was innately, if you will, a storyteller without me realizing it. And I did it purely for the joy of doing it, number one. Number two being an awkward, Dorky fat kid usually would for survival because anyone who's run on fatness listen to this. You know, elementary school every day is like world war three and you literally are not the fastest kid on the block cause you're like fat, but you can be them the sharpest can you do. The [inaudible] school was also good survival survival tool and it's uh, you [00:04:30] know, to win over my bullies. Speaker 3:And number three, I just kind of really enjoyed it. I, I, you know, I could make people laugh. I could tell stories and kind of this innate trait that I had growing up in childhood, you know, just telling stories, making movies with my friends, uh, writing small sketches, uh, was the DNA essentially without me realizing it, of what I do now as a profession. And I think storytelling is the key way for us to kind of bridge the divide that exists not only within America, but actually what's happening, quote unquote, between [00:05:00] the West and Islam. I have a question about your impetus because I know Ishmael Reed and I understand that he really should be getting a little credit here for getting you kind of on the right path to your real passion. When he asked you to write a play for his class about a Pakistani American experience after nine 11. Speaker 3:I think that's a great story. And um, and then it led to your play. Can you talk about the play that came out of that? [00:05:30] So I've been very lucky and privileged in my life for, for many reasons, but one of the privileges I've had as I've had great mentors and also my parents have not been stereotypical South Asian immigrant parents. They've also, they've always encouraged me, uh, since my childhood they spotted a talent and they always told me to write issue. I'll read those of you who don't know MacArthur Genius Appeal that your prize nominated Titan who was living in Oakland with his family. Uh, Carla Blank. Also his partner in crime for the past 40 years. He was my English professor, [00:06:00] uh, back in the day when I was at UC Berkeley as an English major. And in fall, September, 2001, I happen to be in a short story writing class and after the two towers fell, he took me aside and said, you know, I've never, I've never really heard about the Pakistani American experience or the Muslim American experience, even though this is a short story writing class. Speaker 3:I think you are actually a natural playwright. I think dialogue and characters are your strengths. Don't waste your time on this class. I'm going to take you out of this class. [00:06:30] You're gonna have 20 pages of a play to pass the class. Okay, great. Go write it. And I was like, oh my God, please let me do anything except this. And the play that came as a result of him quite literally forcing me to write it as the domestic crusaders, which is an old school kitchen drama in the form of American dramas. Like you know, Long Day's journey into night, death of a salesman, fences one day in the life of three generations of a Fox. Any American Muslim family, six characters, uh, that grandfather, the immigrant parents who have achieved the American dream. [00:07:00] And there's three American born children all forced to reconvene in the house for before the youngest son's 21st birthday. Speaker 3:And Ishmael literally kept at it for like a year telling me to, you know, to, to, to finish this place. Start it from my 21st birthday in the fall of 2001, I submitted my 20 pages to pass the damn class. And then I finally finished it for my 23rd birthday again after I graduated from college. And Ishmael kept at it and then he handed it over to his wife, Carla Blank, who became [00:07:30] the director and dramaturge at this plate and this small little play that has origin and UC Berkeley in the bay area. And then Adam Heran Indian restaurant and Johnny restaurant in Newark, California. And then, you know, Oakland Library. Then went onto Berkeley repertory theater, then went on to New York, then I went up to the county center, then I went to London and got published, uh, [inaudible], which is again a bury a staple, uh, in 2000, I think 10 or 2011 as the first major and Muslim American play they got published. Speaker 3:So that type of [00:08:00] mentorship was key. And the story behind the play I truncated like 13 years is one minute is really kind of remarkable and uh, you know, we, you know, just to show you how sometimes it can be a little bit ahead of the curve. Each model has always been a bit ahead of the curve in spotting kind of thing and it's finding trends. And he always told me to, that was a bit discouraged on 2003, 2004, I'm like, man, I thought the play would picked up and it didn't. He said, he said, listen, America isn't ready yet, but just wait and watch all these other plays are coming out and now they're going to fade. There'll [00:08:30] be talking about your plan 10 years from now just to just your weight. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, whatever. You know. Sometimes he can be very hyperbolic, the people that he praises. And then just one a month ago, university of Maryland tweets out a photo, a professor from the English Department without a photo like teaching and performing, which has all these domestic visitors' with all these white actors playing the box, any American family members as part of the curriculum at University of Minnesota, Peter, that each year and then like London is doing it. You know what I'm saying? Speaker 2:[00:09:00] You're listening to method to the madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. This is an interview over the phone with [inaudible] Ali, the host of Elijah Z or America's the stream social media driven talk show. He's also a author in playwright, a bay area native and UC Berkeley Grad. Uh, we continued our conversation, myself and Lisa keeper with him talking about him getting his play publish and pilot shopping in Hollywood Speaker 3:just to get it published [00:09:30] was based on the promise I made to an Egyptian budding scholar in 2009, this Egyptian scholar with getting her phd. Then she says Alan write about domestic crusaders, specifically American Muslim art and respond to post nine 11, you know, when it comes to cultural creation, but I need all my works that I write about to be published. And that for some strange reason that said, don't worry like 2010, I'll get it published and then like fast forward. So, but yeah, so the play's getting published, right? I'm like, Oh crap. And so that led to my, you know, friendship with Dave Eggers [00:10:00] and McSweeney's, you know, on a whim, emailing them, saying that they wanted to publish to the play. And I made a vow to myself. I remember when I was like 25 and I said, I'll get the pig to play published. Speaker 3:By the time I turned 30 and mixed, [inaudible] called me and said to come over. And I held the copy, the first copy of the domestic crusaders a day after I turned 30, November 2nd, 2010. So somehow, you know, it was interesting like it took an Egyptian scholar, uh, and I think there was also [00:10:30] an Algerian scholar in London who have written about and under thesis on it to kind of get me off my ass to get it published. It gets published here in mixed Sweeney's and the barrier and get get being taught now kind of across America and across the Atlantic. So it's, it's a wild story but probably probably the TV show pilot that you've written with Dave. It's based on the domestic crusaders, correct? No, it's completely original idea that we had. And um, I read that Atlantic article [00:11:00] and it sounds like you've pulled back from HBO because you didn't, it didn't really, they were taking it in to an area that you didn't want to go. And I wanted to ask you about that. Like how is your story different from the TV show all American Muslim and why did you guys feel that maybe America isn't ready for it yet or I don't know. Speaker 3:We still think Americans ready for it. We think America domestic, we actually were ahead of the curve because I think the TV shows about Yemeni American Muslims. [00:11:30] It's about the American Muslim community of the bay area and the lead character is MJ and [inaudible], yet many American immigrants who becomes one of the fastest rising detectives of the SFPD. Now we get over this idea like three and a half years ago, anyone who's been paying attention to international news, there's a country which is in all the headlines Right now. Yemen and HBO was a fantastic partner and they really dug the idea that we pitched. However, we wrote this kind of during the Heyday [00:12:00] of homeland and walking down and in and, but we kind of realized prior second draft that I think HBO just creatively wanting to go into more John [inaudible], John Rhe driven shows and ours was, remains a very unique different type of beast. Speaker 3:It has its own pace. It has its own tone as his own sense of humor. It's not, it's something deliberately unlike what you've seen on television, right? Like television, HBO would go for something like that. They do choose [00:12:30] odd, you know, they're, you're kind of ahead of the curve in that way. So I'm still maybe, you know, look, two things could have happened. Maybe this was their cup of tea. They pass on good shows all the time and good people pass on good shows or B, maybe they started, it sucked. And so Dave and I are like, maybe our pilot sucks. And, but secretly, secretly, deep down we knew it did it. You know, it's one of those things, you know, if it's good or not. And so I'm kind of a stubborn piece of crap, if you will. And if I believe in something, and same of the day [00:13:00] we don't, we don't let it die. Speaker 3:And so we've been pushing it and once we finally publish it on [inaudible], I think two months ago that I wrote an essay about in the Atlantic, it just seems like anyone who's read the piece, right. But even in Hollywood, I got some meetings with Hollywood agents. We all liked the pilot. That's the funny thing. No one says the [inaudible]. Everyone digs it. The question remains, is there a quote unquote market for us? And I think that's the problem with mainstream media and mainstream Hollywood is that there's this fear as this hesitation that, [00:13:30] okay, if you have a, I'll do an example, a totally different story, but I was pitching another pilot and basically all these, you know, studio heads and agents, par agents met and they're like, great idea, but we can't find a bankable Arab American lead. And I'm like, you'll need a bank of oil Arab American lead. Speaker 3:You just need someone who's good. But that just goes to shoot the mindset of not only Hollywood but also Wall Street. You know, the color of the matters in the end is green. So right now they're like, they kept pitching some names, which was hilarious. Like how about as these, I'm sorry, I'm like, I love these. [00:14:00] I'm sorry. Is it really a San Francisco police detective? You really listen to this? I got nothing again through these. I'm sure you can pull it off, but the point, I'm trying to say that it came down to that bankability and so Dave and I to this day, I'm like, just have faith in it. Make a pilot. Anyone who's read the script, like everyone has read the ship, knock on woods. This is dope. This is unique. This is needed. This was necessary. This is really good. [00:14:30] So I'm going to still push it. And now we finally have the interest a couple of years after it was written. So let's hope that let's cross our fingers. I just want to get up, get out of it. Speaker 2:You're listening to method to the madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM and we're speaking with, with Giachali, a author, lawyer, playwright, s e s in places like the Washington Post and the Guardian Salon Atlantic. He's a expert in Muslim American affairs and host of Al Jazeera America, social media driven [00:15:00] talk show the stream and Lisa keeper. And I interviewed him over the phone and we talked about how did he take the leap from graduating with a law degree to becoming a commentator on TV. Speaker 3:I, I graduated from law school, uh, I think I was about 26. It was 2007. And you guys remember what happened in 2008 and that was right at the cusp of this, you know, this, this great recession and I could not find a job to save my life despite [00:15:30] my best efforts. And despite like all these big companies taking a lot of interest in. So I moved back to my, my house, which was my parents house. And I'm like literally sitting in my college bedroom broke as a licensed attorney. You know, she just turned 27. And my father every day used to put $5 in my wallet cause he said, no man should be without $5. You know, I'm getting South Asian groceries from my mom and I'm feeling miserable and like I'm feeling pitied. And essentially I spent the first half of the day, like [00:16:00] cranky out resumes. Speaker 3:I really worked hard, just nothing stuck, nothing stuck. And, uh, on a whim and just like, you know, madness, I'm like, I just crank out an essay. And at that time, if you guys remember, the Blackwater scandal was all and used in 2007, and Blackwater was a private military contractor, uh, still has that, had committed a lot of atrocities in Iraq. And I'm like, wow. In my second year of law school, I actually wrote a paper on private military firms in Iraq and the legality of such firms in Iraq. So I said, since I know about this [00:16:30] one, I transformed my 30 page paper and look at five page essay. I wrote the essay, I sent it to counterpunch on a whim counter punch, published it and said this was really good. You know, anytime you get something else, send it our way. I said word. Speaker 3:I said, okay. So then next week I send them something else. I said, fantastic. Send us something else. The next week I sent him something else. And then there was another website started from a UC Berkeley Grad Shahad the amount of the Altima, muslim.com he saw domestic crusader as in its first incarnation at the open public library. [00:17:00] And he followed my career and he said, hey, if you ever want to write for us, write for us. So I did in the period of about six months on a whim, I think I ended up cracking down like 50 pieces. I was at the Tasmanian Devil owes a man possessed and I didn't know what I was doing right? Like I just literally had a broken yellow Ethan and cable attached to a dying Fujitsu Laptop in my bedroom of my parents' home with two months fans on my shirts. And I, I literally crank out article after article interview after interview and I bought six [00:17:30] or seven months in, I got this invitation at the UC Berkeley, not the Berkeley one. Speaker 3:Once I graduate theology center right by UC Berkeley. Right. GTU and they're like, hey Carnegie has given us a funding to host like something on journalism and can you come as a new media journalist and talk about new media to these old school journalists? I'm like, who am I? Why are you inviting me? And they're like, oh cause you're a new media journalist. I'm like, I am. Okay. I have no idea. So they started referring to me as a new media journalist and as an interviewer and as [00:18:00] a SAS. And then, you know, at that time I was like, who am I? I'm just one guy living in Fremont. I'm not going to do commentary pieces. But on a whim, on the whim, asa foleys, who became elected president, what was chosen as president does the party one in Pakistan, he hugged, if you remember Sarah Palin, it's like 2008 and so I was sitting there and I'm like, I've got to write something. Speaker 3:So on a whim, I cranked out kind of Jericho, but serious, a thousand word essay. [00:18:30] And I had this one contact from the Guardian. I sent it to him. I'm like, he's never gonna respond to me. Richard Adams from the Guardian response back within two hours. So I love this essay, I'm going to publish it tomorrow, send me any other pitches you've got. So I'm like, okay. And so now I became a commentator. And so one thing led to another and then I made the leap to like SAS to national team. And then I'm curious, what was your seamless, my theme was basically I used this very awkward social interaction [00:19:00] as a metaphor for the dysfunctional volatile relationship between the United States and Pakistan, and I just kind of put it in the context of modern history and I kind of had some tongue in cheek comments about us. Speaker 3:I believe there was already and Sarah Helen as political neophytes, who somehow might be able to control nuclear nations. It was a terrifying prospect for the future of the world, both the United States, Canada, Pakistan, and a little bit tongue in cheek, but it was grounded in reality and in facts. And so [00:19:30] as this was happening, I ended up, I was also a solo attorney paying my bills as this was happening. I also made the vow, this was 2008 that by 2009 nine 11 I would premiere my play, the domestic crusaders in New York. And the reason why I said that it was as if there's a dude named Barack Hussein. Obama might become president and maybe that play I wrote six years ago might be more valuable at a topical now than ever before. So sitting there like literally with my broken [00:20:00] fcoe Ethernet cable, I somehow plotted this ambitious vision and long story short, you know I ended up merging these three or four careers into one and everyone at that time laughed at me. Speaker 3:They're like, you can only be one thing. You can only be an attorney or you can be a writer or it can be a journalist or a blogger or a playwright who can be any of the above. It can be all of the above. And I really rejected that and said, I think I'm going to try all of the above and below. You hold those people and [00:20:30] that's why I kind of made the leap. It wasn't necessarily a leap, Ali, it was like this long lonely uphill trudge towards the tour, the synthesizing, if you will, all these interests, we can kind of think about it. It's all anchored in storytelling as well. How we start off this conversation and that's how I made the condition. Took a couple of years, I finally pulled it off. You wrote your short, credible, you wrote this incredible report that really called out some people that it called Fear Inc roots of the Islamophobia Network [00:21:00] in America. Speaker 3:That was, I guess that was more political than, well it's all political, but that put you in the spotlight. That was something that happened as a result of all this crazy stuff that I just described for the past five minutes of history. How the world works out. Center for American progress is a, you know, a think tank in Washington d C and many people call it, you know, quote Unquote Obama think tank. It's very, you know, progressive, Democrat friendly. And I knew [00:21:30] some of those folks who were following my storyteller, SAS playwright career and in the summer, excuse me, in the spring of 2011 they're like, hey, we want to think outside of the box. Would you be willing to lead the research on this project that we have of exposing what we call these [inaudible] phobia network in America? You know, part of my essays and cometary, they knew that I was kind of exposing these anti Muslim memes and bigots were trumpeting scapegoating and fear-mongering, especially after the 2010 [00:22:00] ground zero mosque controversy that was neither a ground zero nor a mosque. Speaker 3:And they said, you know, you're a non DC guy, maybe you should lead it. And I said, sure. It sounds like an interesting project. I've never done it before. Why not? And it's small little report that was supposed to be a 20 page expo a I ended up, it was just supposed to take me two months that have taken me six months and my first draft was like 180 pages and center for American progress. Looked at it and they're like, you're crazy. Like they literally looked at it like I've mapped it out right. They're like, you're nuts. We don't believe you. And they did an audit of [00:22:30] it for two months. Like okay, okay, you're right. And then report, it ended up being this hundred and 38 page report investigative report called Fear Inc the roots of the Islamophobia network in Americans. That was published in August, 2011 and you, knock on wood, I'm very proud of it. Speaker 3:It ends up ended up being a seminal report, kind of a very foundational report. A lot of people still use to this day resource everywhere you had exposed a lot of these players we can name in a second. And a lot of these means that have unfortunately come from the fringe [00:23:00] that have been mainstreamed, especially after the election of Barack Obama. And especially after like, you know, the 2010 guns or moss controversies such as, you know, Sharita as a threat to America. Uh, you know, uh, mosques are Trojan horses. There's no such thing as peaceful Islam. Uh, traditional Islam is radical Islam. If you're a practicing Muslim, you cannot be a loyal American. You know, these fringe means. Uh, we saw, we just saw recently 2012, uh, elections in nearly every single Republican presidential [00:23:30] candidate ran with the Anti Sharia mean for both money and votes. Speaker 3:We just saw, like last month, governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, he followed the lead of an Islamophobe though we, uh, outed Steve Emerson and said, there's go zones in America. These Shiria infested sounds were Muslims have taken over and they've like, you know, like apparently sprayed their Shiria everywhere and non Muslims are not allowed to come. And you know, he's doubled, you know, he's doubled down on this rhetoric and he knows better, but he's doubling [00:24:00] down on this river because he knows it plays to his base. And you know, President Obama is a Muslim and, and so forth and so forth. So what we did is I mapped it out. Uh, we made it very digestible, connected the dots, traced the funding, and showed the genesis quite clearly the genesis of how a very few interconnected incestuous group of people, very few people were able to create. And then mainstream, uh, these fictitious threats that to marginalized, [00:24:30] uh, American Muslims from America's political civic and social sphere and how it is ultimately dangerous knowledge to America's cultural fabric, but also threatens our national security. And as you, and we've seen example after example and thankfully that has become a foundational resource for not just Americans but also in Europe right now. You see what's happening. Speaker 2:So I'm very glad about that. I'm talking about the report you're listening to KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM and this is method to the madness. We're interviewing [inaudible] [00:25:00] Ali, UC Berkeley graduate and lawyer, playwright SAS and host of Al Jazeera as social media driven talk show the stream. He joined us via phone bridge from Washington DC to talk about the Muslim American experience in America. And we asked him about what he thinks the biggest challenges are facing Muslim Americans today. I want to put this in proper context. I think American Muslims really look at it. Speaker 3:Birds [00:25:30] eye view. It's a success story. And like we have tremendous privileges, uh, unlike other minority groups that have gone through the similar hazing. Yes, we have deep, unique problems and you know, this lot of phobia, anti Muslim bigotry, especially the fact that now it's at a global scale, the local becomes a national becomes, you know, the global story with a tweet or a youtube video. But at the same time, you know, we're the most diverse religious community in America. American Muslim women are the most educated women of any religious group, right behind Jewish American women, [00:26:00] uh, as a group where, you know, educated, uh, above average income, uh, you know, quote unquote moderate mainstream, whatever that means. That's good words. Uh, you know, renounce audit volume extremisms so many of us have achieved, if you will, the American dream. I think the problem internally for American Muslims is whether or not we choose to be spectators or participants. Speaker 3:And what I mean by that is oftentimes, especially with immigrant communities, there was a, don't rock the boat, keep your head down, have a checklist [00:26:30] of success and follow the safe path. Um, and often times we kind of, if you will, have helped this marginal marginalization of American Muslims happen by not investing in storytelling. 90%. It's a American Muslims. And when they did a pull it like 2001, we're either doctors, engineers, or business. So that leaves me about 10, 11% for teachers, activists, politicians, journalists, directors, uh, you know, and so forth. And I think [00:27:00] if you deprive yourself of the opportunity to be a cultural creator, if you deprive yourself of the opportunity to become a participant, if you deprive yourself of becoming a protagonist of not only your own narrative but the American narrative, at the end of the day, you can kind of only blame yourself for being on the margins or being a footnote or being a sidekick or being an antagonist. Speaker 3:And I think it'd be the, the major struggle for American Muslims is how to not lose hope in, uh, themselves and not to lose hope [00:27:30] in America, especially when they are facing an uphill challenge where it seems that they seem besieged by so many palms. I forget. It's like an avalanche every, every step. Uh, everywhere you go, you want to get out of the muck and then isis they want get out of the muck and all kinds of the Arabian peninsula you want to get out of the muck and some loans radical. And then you're always defensive, right? You're always interrogated and you're always asked to prove that you're a moderate. You're always asked to prove your loyalty. And I think it can be easily exhausting for an American Muslim and it [00:28:00] could easily be defeating. And I think that struggle is to have faith in the best, best aspects of ourselves and the best aspects of this country, of the best aspects of our community members to kind of unite in solidarity over shared values and really invest proactively as storytellers. Speaker 3:And sometimes that requires bum rushing the show and doing things on your own, right? If cold, cold, mainstream media or mainstream politics does not have you as a protagonist, where are you going to do? Are you [00:28:30] going to drink your chat as a spectator whine and complain? Or are you gonna use your village's privileged to throw down and bum rush the show? And it might take a little bit of time, but at least you move forward. I think that's something that is very pivotal, not only for a sense of identity and only first sense of swagger and only person's confidence, not only first month of wellbeing, the only sense of creating a positive proactive narrative for this generation, future generations, but also think for honoring this anti Muslim bigotry that [00:29:00] it's poisonous for our national security. And I also think it provides a microcosm of what America will have to do if it wants to emerge as the best version of itself as it approaches a minority and majority country, the way America treats us minorities and the way we treat our marginalized communities, it will be the fault line of how we will either emerge or fail. Speaker 3:I think as a nation, I think that's a big test. Speaker 2:That was what Jihad Ali on Calyx is method to the madness. Now, 30 [00:29:30] minute talk show every other Friday that explores the innovative spirit of the bay area. Well, John is a UC Berkeley graduate, a lawyer, a playwright, essayist consultants, the U S State Department and host of Al Jazeera America's social media driven talk show the stream. Very proud of the work he's doing to communicate the Muslim American experience in America. If you want to follow more of which odds work, follow him on Twitter with his handle at YJ hot Ali. That's w a j. A. H. A T, a. L. I [00:30:00] on Twitter. That's it for our program today. Thanks for joining and special thanks to my partner in crime, Lisa Key for setting up this interview and making it all happen. With that, we'll turn it back over to the music. Have a great Friday. Everybody. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

RCL Year B, Proper 27 I went to seminary up at CDSP in Berkeley, which is part of the consortium called the GTU, the Graduate Theological Union. That’s a whole mix of seminaries, Catholic and Protestant and Jewish and Unitarian and more. Besides the more weighty classes of Bible, theology, ethics, and so on, there […]

- Dave is the President and Co-founder of Not For Sale. His “tripolar” background in education, investment banking and journalism give Dave the experience and vision to tackle human trafficking from every angle and drive the organization forward at an unprecedented pace. Dave has authored five books, is the recipient of two national journalist awards, and was named National Endowment for the Humanities Chair at the University of San Francisco for his work in technology and ethics. He is currently a professor in the School of Management at the University of San Francisco. Today Dave leads the strategic and financial opportunities at Not For Sale, guides the team towards the organizational mission. David received his B.A. with a major in Psychology from Westmont College in Santa Barbara. After studying for a year at the International Baptist Seminary in Ruschlikon Switzerland, he finished his M.Div. at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. He remained in Berkeley to complete the doctorate program at the Graduate Theological Union. Following graduation, he taught at the GTU for three years. He then took up a faculty post at USF in 1994. In 1998-1999 he was named National Endowment for the Humanities Chair at USF for his work in technology and ethics.

David Batstone is the President and Co-founder of Not For Sale. His “tripolar” background in education, investment banking and journalism give Dave the experience and vision to tackle human trafficking from every angle and drive the organization forward at an unprecedented pace. Dave has authored five books, is the recipient of two national journalist awards, and was named National Endowment for the Humanities Chair at the University of San Francisco for his work in technology and ethics. He is currently a professor in the School of Management at the University of San Francisco. Today Dave leads the strategic and financial opportunities at Not For Sale, guides the team towards the organizational mission. David received his B.A. with a major in Psychology from Westmont College in Santa Barbara. After studying for a year at the International Baptist Seminary in Ruschlikon Switzerland, he finished his M.Div. at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. He remained in Berkeley to complete the doctorate program at the Graduate Theological Union. Following graduation, he taught at the GTU for three years. He then took up a faculty post at USF in 1994. In 1998-1999 he was named National Endowment for the Humanities Chair at USF for his work in technology and ethics.

Dave is the President and Co-founder of Not For Sale. His “tripolar” background in education, investment banking and journalism give Dave the experience and vision to tackle human trafficking from every angle and drive the organization forward at an unprecedented pace. Dave has authored five books, is the recipient of two national journalist awards, and was named National Endowment for the Humanities Chair at the University of San Francisco for his work in technology and ethics. He is currently a professor in the School of Management at the University of San Francisco. Today Dave leads the strategic and financial opportunities at Not For Sale, guides the team towards the organizational mission. David received his B.A. with a major in Psychology from Westmont College in Santa Barbara. After studying for a year at the International Baptist Seminary in Ruschlikon Switzerland, he finished his M.Div. at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. He remained in Berkeley to complete the doctorate program at the Graduate Theological Union. Following graduation, he taught at the GTU for three years. He then took up a faculty post at USF in 1994. In 1998-1999 he was named National Endowment for the Humanities Chair at USF for his work in technology and ethics.

The GTU-UCB Working Group on Religion and Cognitive Science hosted a panel discussion of Mark Graves’ new work Mind, Brain, and the Elusive Soul: Human Systems of Cognitive Science and Religion at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in March 2009. Aimed at both theorists and practitioners working at the intersection of religion, theology, and science, Graves’ book aims to “describe the ‘more’ that does not reduce to the parts” of the human soul. The second panelist/respondent was GTU graduate and clinical psychologist Mary Walsh.