Pointing his finger towards Yasmin the first person who was given a chance to ask question after Yasmin's presentation said, "You are the very reason why we Hindus hate Muslims." That comment pretty much set up the tone for the rest of the Q&A session. From that point on the onslaught was relentless. Yasmin was accused of a very biased presentation, about presenting a Pakistani point of view, and everything in between. It is doubtful if the harassers knew each other from before, but they grew an instant camaraderie and acted en masse--they clapped on each other's comments and jeered at Yasmin's response. But the firework had to be cut short because the library was closing. When the event was announced to be over, a large number of people came to the rostrum and surrounded Yasmin--the younger among them appeared to be more aggressive. Sensing the danger associated with the charged environment, Yasmin's associates escorted her back to her car.
End result: A hostile crowd makes an event successful...and it is good copy.

This evening around 45 people gathered at the Martin Luther King Library, San Jose State University to listen to Yasmin Qureshi's talk on "Kashmir in Conflict: Roots and Global Implications." In her detailed presentation, Yasmin gave a historical account of the conflict and shared her personal experiences from a recent visit to Srinagar and other areas of the Indian occupied Kashmir. The program was arranged by the Culture & Conflict Forum.

You ain't a dreamer, John

Who are these very creative people at Google who come up a unique nifty design of the Google logo every day? Whoever they are, they are good at what they do. Today on John Lennon's 70th birthday, Google 's two Os were derived from John's round eyeglasses and the letter 'e' --e as in enter--was the button to play a part of 'Imagine.' It made my day! [Though I could not figure out the tree placed before the eyeglasses.]
Along with Qurratul Ain Haider and Carl Sagan, John Lennon was another person who died before I got a chance to meet him and tell him what a wonderful human being he was.
You ain't a dreamer, John Lennon. What you imagined is how it is going to be.

You would be forgiven for thinking "Songs of Blood and Sword" has some similarity to "Daughter of Destiny"--that Fatima Bhutto is yet another Bhutto woman crying over her father's violent death. But you would definitely enjoy the book if you are a Bhutto family fan and want to read more about the family members, especially onwards from the point Benazir Bhutto's pen stopped.

Pakistanis at Stanford (PaS) was a co-sponsor of Fatima Bhutto talk. Sanaa Nadeem, President, PaS, introduced Fatima Bhutto to the audience.

Fatima Bhutto, the first journalist in the Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto family, is currently on a book promotion tour. " Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter’s Memoir", Fatima's third book, was recently published by Nation Books. Her book tour that started in New York on September 24 ended today in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her first appearance in the Bay Area was in Berkeley on October 5, in a ticketed event. Today Fatima Bhutto spoke at the Stanford University where the event was primarily open to Stanford students and staff members.

On September 28, Khalid Mahmood spoke at the Pakistani American Cultural Center (PACC) in San Jose. The program was arranged by the South Asia Studies Center for Culture and Conflict Forum.

The recent Pakistani floods are giving various types of hopes to a number of people of different political convictions. So what does Khalid Mahmood, Director of Labour Education Foundation (LEF), and member of Labour Relief Campaign (LRC), want to be the political outcome of the floods? He obviously wants a revolution headed by peasants and laborers.