Dec 8-12 Programs

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Today’s Women and Shari’a with UW-Madison Law professor Asifa Quraishi, who can cut through the thickest Islamist patriarchal crap with her unfailing sense of equanimity and ever-ready razor sharp intellect. What a pleasure. I hope we changed some minds about the nature of Islamic law -- which actually favors women in its intention - and the reasons why Muslim women are so often subject to such cruel and barbaric practices. I am reminded of John Donne’s poem: “Ask not for whom the bell tolls…it tolls for thee.” Any woman’s death diminishes me.

Monday: The Goldman Sachs Foundation partnered with the Asia Society to encourage American high school students to study abroad. We’ll meet two of this year’s winners of the prize-winners for excellence in international education: a bouncy blonde from southern California who traveled to Nepal and found something underneath the poverty and privation that touched her deeply; and an African-American student from Atlanta who found deep resonances in South Africa with our own Civil Rights movement.

Tuesday: It’s not just Sarah Palin who thinks Africa is a country rather than a continent. To dispel ignorance and illuminate the hidden riches of the so-called "dark continent," join us with experts who really know the lay of the land and its peoples. It’s all part of Geography Awareness Week.

Wednesday: Al America! Think Muslims are only in the Middle-East? Think again. Jonathan Curiel, longtime staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, has written a fascinating cultural travelogue documenting America’s Arab and Islamic roots that incorporates everything from the Alamo to The Doors (Jim Morrison, that is.) Don’t miss this one.

Thursday: We've got the trailer, the tickets, and soon, we hope, Danny Boyle, the Irish director of Slumdog Millionaire, the movie about an Indian boy from the slums of Mumbai who’s in the hot seat in his country's version of the popular game show Who Wants to Be a Millionnaire? The film opens in Wisconsin next weekend.

Friday: Great cooking goes beyond following a recipe--it's knowing how to season ingredients to coax the greatest possible flavor from them. Join us with Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg for The Flavor Bible, drawing on dozens of leading chefs' combined experience in top restaurants across the country, and a chance for you to add your own flavor tips.

Oh, yes, and by the way, if you happen to pick up the current issue of New York magazine, check out the feature on indie music stores. Dominick Fernow, who operates Hospital Productions in the East Village (I’m headed there this weekend) just happens to be my son!

Ciao,

Jean