This post was written by Sarah Milstein, co-host of The Lean Startup Conference.

We’re looking for speakers for the 2013 Lean Startup Conference. Last week, we announced that our short application form was live. Today, we’re following up with answers to frequently asked questions we’ve received since then, because the answers will help your application succeed. If you’re a Lean Startup veteran, feel free to skim the beginning, as this is mostly stuff you already know.

1) Can you tell me more about your audience? The Lean Startup Conference is an event by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs—except that our definition of “entrepreneur” may be different from the one you have in mind.

Eric has talked often about recognizing a startup as an organization designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Most commonly, that’s uncertainty about whether you can build the product at all (what MBAs call “technical risk”) or whether anybody will use or buy it (“market risk”). Although every organization faces some uncertainty in developing new stuff, the conditions are not always extreme. For example, when your company adds another blade to its disposable razors, the product’s technical development, marketing and sales will follow relatively predictable paths.

But that’s not to say that every established company developing personal grooming products is operating risk-free. What if your company is concerned that emerging customer pressure and local laws will make disposable razors difficult, if not impossible, to sell in the U.S. in ten years? Now you may be facing several kinds of risk. Will you be able to think up alternative products? If so, will customers be interested in the new ideas and able to incorporate those products into their daily routines? If so, will you be able to manufacture those products efficiently—or at all?

So when we say our conference is by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, we’re talking about people in any kind of organization—for-profit, non-profit, governmental, education, startup, Fortune 1000—who are responsible for developing products and services beyond the edge of what your organization can know through its or its competitors’ existing experience.

Often, in very young organizations, those people are simply the founders. In more established places, they may have nearly any job title. And in any organization, they can be technical, but they can fill other roles altogether. What they share is a need to learn a lot very quickly and the ability to adjust—sometimes subtly, sometimes radically--after incorporating new lessons.

2) Ok, I get it: the “startup” part of “Lean Startup” can be a lot of things other than two people in a garage with a couple of laptops. So what kinds of talks do all these entrepreneurs find valuable? Our attendees are hungry to learn more about the “lean” part of “Lean Startup”—how to learn quickly and effectively to reduce all that extreme uncertainty (the MBAs call this “de-risking”; it would be fair to call the MBAs “language assassins”).

Now, “lean” is often used to refer to a company’s financial situation, so it might make you think of a bootstrapped or under-funded organization. But when we talk about “lean,” we’re referring to the processes a company can use, when developing a new product or service, to learn quickly about the questions it has. (If you’re getting the sense that “Lean Startup” is neither “lean” nor “startup” as you’ve considered those words before, you’ve got the right idea.) We also care that those learning processes are as cheap as possible, so that you can try the maximum number of things as you’re learning before you run out of cash. “As cheap as possible,” though, is relative and may mean spending many thousands or millions of dollars to learn what you need to know.

For example, if your publishing company is thinking of putting out a coffee table book in the U.S. about cooking with insects, you might reasonably ask: Will anybody buy this? (You know you can produce such a volume; the processes you already use for publishing lavish books on baking cakes nearly all apply here.) One way to find out if anybody will buy the book is to go ahead and publish it. Commission the writer and photographer, assign an editor to develop the book with them, find people to test the recipes, get a copyeditor to review the final text, have production people layout the pages and correct the photos, hire a freelance indexer, get a pro to  proofread the whole thing, and then ship it off to China for printing (and probably send a production expert to oversee the run). Oh, and your salespeople have to make sure bookstores will stock it, and your marketing and PR people will have to make sure readers know it exists. From the time you decided to find out if anybody will buy it until the time you’re able to actually test the idea using this approach is approximately two and a half to three years. Not to mention $200,000 in staff time and hard costs.

Or you could work with the writer to create a blog, see if it can attract a readership, and then test whether those readers will pre-order a book—which you can do before you’ve put ten seconds of effort into creating a print volume. Total time elapsed? Two to six months, and as a bonus, the readers test the recipes for you. Note that this isn’t a free process. You may have to pay the writer and photographer, and perhaps you’ll spend some money on training the writer to use blogging software and social media tools that help them build a following.  Generously, it might cost you $20,000. In other words, you could test ten book ideas for the cost of publishing one. And because you can run your tests simultaneously, you could learn in several months rather than over the course of a decade or two which are worth investing more in.

At The Lean Startup Conference, our attendees are keenly interested in ideas like the blog approach—that is, they’re looking for ways they can quickly and cheaply generate and test more ideas to learn faster. There are a few ways your talk can help them:

• You can provide advice on how a significant challenge—like a seemingly intractable and long-term development cycle—can be approached in new ways using Lean Startup methods. Last year, Danny Kim talked about how his company, Litmotors, was rapidly testing the market for totally new kinds of cars. While most of our attendees are not in the automotive sector, they could see ways to apply Litmotors’ thinking in their own organizations. Similarly, Diane Tavenner talked about the way Summit Schools had run short-term experiments within the fairly drawn out cycle of a school year. And Jessica Scorpio shared the way GetAround had used prototyping to test their very big idea.

• You can give hands-on advice for a particular process that helps people learn, like A/B testing. Maybe you’ve got technical advice for getting the most out of A/B testing on software projects. Or maybe you’ve done A/B testing with a food-delivery service and you have advice about how to run real-world A/B tests. Or maybe you've realized that A/B testing has some significant problems that most people aren't aware of. Last year, Janice Fraser and Laura Klein ran a workshop on tools that you can use to validate ideas. Adam Goldstein talked about a particular live-chat tool that Hipmunk has used to learn more quickly than they realized was possible. Matt Brezina shared techniques for learning when you’re developing a mobile app—an environment that many people think resists rapid development.

• You can give advice about working with other people when you’re using Lean Startup techniques. Perhaps you got fired up about MVPs two years ago, but it took nine months to convince your boss that there would be value in selling a product that didn’t yet exist—and now you can share the secrets of getting other people on board much more quickly. Last year, speakers from Intuit, Meetup, Knod.es, Neo, Change.org and BloomBoard all talked about how you can build internal support for Lean Startup. Dan Milstein talked about using the 5 Whys technique—and gave key advice for doing it better with your team.

• You can give counter-intuitive advice on implementing Lean Startup techniques. Last year, the co-founders of Back to the Roots talked about their innovation accounting and how they were ignoring sales metrics in order to grow. Charles Hudson shared his hard decision to pivot from the iPhone to Android platform for his company’s games. Jocelyn Wyatt and Tendai Charasika both gave specific examples of how getting out of the building had yielded surprising results.

• You can give advice about applying Lean Startup ideas to business areas other than product development. Last year, Stephanie Hay and Leah Busque both talked about Lean Startupping their marketing processes. George Bilbrey gave insight on using the methods on a sales team.

I’m sure you see the theme emerging here: our attendees want your advice, based on your experiences. They don’t need to be convinced that Lean Startup provides a compelling alternative to traditional product development, so we are not looking for talks about the fact that you’ve had success with Lean Startup in an unexpected sector or in a part of the world outside San Francisco. But if you’ve applied Lean Startup ideas, and you have experience to share that other people can use, our attendees may derive inspiration from an unusual context, like a story from the pharmaceutical industry or a startup in Nigeria. 

Hopefully, you've also noticed that checking out last year's talks can be a good way to get a sense of what we look for. (The talks linked here all all take you to videos from last year.)

Our talks range from five minutes to three hours, and we structure them based on the information you have to share, so don’t worry too much about length. Focus instead on the advice you can give. 

3) Cool—advice is key. Any particular themes you’re interested in this year? We’re looking for entrepreneurs’ stories from around the world and from different sectors that share deep learning. As this is the fourth year of the conference, and as noted above, we’re moving away from talks about the fact that somebody has applied Lean Startup in a place or company that’s unexpected and are instead focusing on advice from those people. If you need a theme to guide you, ask yourself: What advice can I give other people to help them achieve growth in their organizations?

Based on attendee requests, some of our talks this year will be more in-depth and targeted to segments of our audience. So if you have advice that you think is relevant only to people working in established corporations, or only to government employees, or only to non-profit leaders, or only to innovative educators, or only to engineers, no prob—you can indicate that in your application.

Do note that the conference is a no-hype zone (no pitches, no launches). Really, it's a place to learn and connect with other entrepreneurs. In addition to talks, the program will include peer-to-peer events for sharing ideas and meeting other entrepreneurs, along with structured mentoring.

4) I’m not a coder; should I bother to apply? Glad you asked. About half of our attendees are not technical, and very few of our talks focus on technical processes. So, no, you absolutely do not have to be a developer to give a talk. That said, we do have room this year for a handful of tech talks. So if you’ve got advice to share on implementing a continuous deployment framework, for example, we’re all eyes.

5) Do I have to follow the directions on the application form? Ok, nobody has asked this question yet. But I include it because we pretty consistently find that about a quarter of all applicants blow off the most important part of the form: the link to the two- to three-minute video you have made for us.

Note that that is not “the link to your website” or “the link to a video of you speaking at another conference” or “the link to a video of you being interviewed on tv.” We require that you create a video for us, and we give explicit directions on how to do so. Once you’ve come up with your talk idea, the video itself should take just a few minutes to create. Don’t let it be a barrier to applying. Do follow the directions. Applications are due by May 9 May 16 (we extended the deadline after Kathy Sierra volunteered to provide training for our speakers).

We look forward to reviewing your ideas.

I was checking Twitter mentions last week, and saw that a viewer by the name of

nguyen4 had posted a strawberry rhubarb pie photo on Instagram (left), and credited me for the recipe. At first, I thought they were mistaken, as I didn’t recognize the pie as one of my creations, but then I realized that was because they’d made it so much better looking than mine. I hate/love when that happens. 

Anyway, once I got over this blow to my ego, I decided to repost this in case you missed it the first time, or just needed a little reminder as to what a fantastic spring pie this really is. Enjoy!

To read the original post and get the ingredient amounts, click here.

by Salman Hameed

A few things for Sunday.

Article: Last week's New Yorker had a fascinating and well written article by Burkhard Bilger on our changing perceptions of Mars. While it centers on two figures associated with the Curiosity rover, it starts with a longer overview. What struck me was the fact that some people not only imagined "canals" on Mars in the 19th century, but also saw the Hebrew word for Almight - Shajdai spelled out on the surface of Mars. I guess we shouldn't have been surprised then at the later claims of Face on Mars (these are all a result of human propensity to see patterns where none exist - known as Pareidolia). Here is the beginning of the article:

There once were two planets, new to the galaxy and inexperienced in life. Like fraternal twins, they were born at the same time, about four and a half billion years ago, and took roughly the same shape. Both were blistered with volcanoes and etched with watercourses; both circled the same yellow dwarf star—close enough to be warmed by it, but not so close as to be blasted to a cinder. Had an alien astronomer swivelled his telescope toward them in those days, he might have found them equally promising—nurseries in the making. They were large enough to hold their gases close, swaddling themselves in atmosphere; small enough to stay solid, never swelling into gaseous giants. They were “Goldilocks planets,” our own astronomers would say: just right for life. 

The rest is prehistory. On Earth, the volcanoes filled the air with water vapor and carbon dioxide. The surface cooled, a crust formed, and oceans condensed upon it. In hot springs and undersea vents, simple carbon compounds bubbled up to form amino acids and peptides. The first bacteria moved through the ooze; then came blue-green algae, spreading across the planet like a watery carpet, drinking in sunlight and exhaling oxygen, giving breath to everything that came after. Geologists call this the Great Oxygenation Event—the most momentous change in the planet’s history. It seems inevitable now: life’s triumphant march toward complexity, toward us. But like most creation stories this one is also a cautionary tale. It has both a Heaven and a Hell. 

In 1877, when the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli drew the first detailed map of Mars, he imagined the planet as an earthly paradise. He labelled one region Eden, another Elysium, others, on later maps, Arcadia and Utopia. Peering through his telescope on the roof of the Palazzo di Brera, in Milan, Schiaparelli had seen what looked like oceans, continents, and water channels swim into view. “The planet is not a desert of arid rocks,” he wrote. “It lives.” And his successors often took him at his word: the sharper their telescopes, the blurrier their vision. They saw mountains of ice and rivers of snowmelt, William Sheehan writes in his 1996 book, “The Planet Mars: A History of Observation and Discovery.” They saw fertile oases and a moss-green equator. They saw an irrigation system so linear and “trigonometric,” as the astronomer Percival Lowell put it, that it could only be the work of a highly intelligent race. Some even saw a Hebrew word for Almighty—Shajdai—spelled out on the planet’s surface. “True, the magnitude of the work of cutting the canals into the shape of the name of God is at first thought appalling,” the San Francisco Chronicle noted in 1895. “But there are terrestrial works which to us today seem no less impossible.” 

By the time humanity got its first closeup view of Mars, a little less than a century after Schiaparelli mapped it, the planet had come to seem like a second, more exotic Earth. Books like “The Martian Chronicles” described a place of eerie desert grandeur, inhabited by slender, tawny beings given to strange hallucinations—Taos without the tourists. And though infrared studies suggested that its surface had seventy times less water than Earth’s driest desert, biologists still hoped for the best. “Given all the evidence presently available, we believe it entirely reasonable that Mars is inhabited with living organisms and that life independently originated there,” a study by the National Academy of Sciences concluded in March, 1965. 

The search for life on Mars is now in its sixth decade. Forty spacecraft have been sent there, and not one has found a single fossil or living thing. The closer we look, the more hostile the planet seems: parched and frozen in every season, its atmosphere inert and murderously thin, its surface scoured by solar winds. By the time Earth took its first breath three billion years ago, geologists now believe, Mars had been suffocating for a billion years. The air had thinned and rivers evaporated; dust storms swept up and ice caps seized what was left of the water. The Great Desiccation Event, as it’s sometimes called, is even more of a mystery than the Great Oxygenation on Earth. We know only this: one planet lived and the other died. One turned green, the other red.

Book: Linked with the 19th century fascination with Mars and the discovery, here is an NPR review of a fiction novel set in Egypt. Equilateral by Ken Kalfus has a great premise and it is on my reading list:

The real-life premise is this: In the late 19th century, astronomers spotted what they thought were canals on Mars. Many of those astronomers theorized that, therefore, there must be life on the red planet. Kalfus' fictional astronomer, Sanford Thayer, is an Englishman who's obsessed with the dream of contacting the Martians. Thayer has

launched an internationally funded project to carve out an enormous equilateral triangle — 300 miles to each side — in the Western deserts of Egypt. Once it's dug out, the triangle will be filled with petroleum. Here's how Kalfus' somewhat pompous omniscient narrator describes the rest of the plan: 

"[S]ometime before dawn on June 17, 1894, at the moment of Earth's most favorable position in the Martian sky, the petroleum pooled in the trenches on each Side of the Equilateral will be ignited simultaneously, launching a Flare from the Earth's darkened limb that across millions of miles of empty space will petition for man's membership in the fraternity of planetary civilizations." 

Throughout the opening chapters of his novel, Kalfus is so captivated by his own fictional fantasy of that giant triangular 19th century greeting card flashing into space that he's content to just elaborate on the details. He describes how 900,000 native workers toil deep in what Thayer calls "the Great Sand Sea"; those workers are under strict command not to deviate one inch in their digging lest the Martians mistakenly think that a geometrically imprecise triangle is a natural, rather than a man-made, phenomenon. That's why, when the workers stumble upon the tip of a buried pyramid as they're digging a 40-foot trench on one side of the Equilateral, Thayer orders them to bury the pyramid again and pour the pitch over it. At this point, we readers begin to catch on that Thayer, in the fine literary tradition of Englishmen abroad, has stayed out in the midday sun too long. 

The great lure of Kalfus' kooky novel, at first, lies in its central premise: The book even contains diagrams to help readers visualize the growing triangle and the astronomical glide of Mars and Earth relative to the sun. We feel the blistering heat and the invasiveness of little "daggered" grains of sand that scratch the eyepieces of Thayer's telescopes, even when they're carefully packed away in Chinese cedar cabinets. Given that this is a novel preoccupied with geometrical design, it makes sense that the main characters here — Thayer, his lovelorn secretary, his solicitous native servant, and the practical British engineer on the project — drift closer and further from each other in shifting triangulated alliances. But halfway through this little book, a more ambitious theme begins emerging. Without giving the startling particulars away, I'll just say that violence erupts in the desert, stirring up a veritable sandstorm of troubling philosophical questions, all of them having to do with whether or not we Earthlings even have the right to think of ourselves as embodying "intelligent life."

Reality Show: Who knows when a human mission top Mars will ever take place. However, it seems that the chances for an earlier mission have gone up because of Mars One - a non-profit group. The Idea is to make a reality show of the first explorers on Mars - and we will all pay big bucks to see them prepare and then travel - one way - to Mars. The idea of a one-way travel to Mars has been around for a while and I see it as quite reasonable. After all, (some) humans have always been explorers and this will be a continuation of that tradition. Here is a bit about the idea:

But Mars One stands apart in very important ways: First, it will strive to be self-financed by selling the astronaut selection process, launch and landing as a reality television show. Second, the lucky winners will live out their lives in an inflatable habitat on another planet.
"If somebody's an outdoors person who says, 'I need my mountains, I need to smell the flowers,' then it's not the mission for him," says Norbert Kraft, the group's chief medical officer. 

Mars One co-founder Bas Lansdorp says that the idea of selling the trip as prime-time television really seemed doable after he saw the revenue numbers from the London Olympics. That event garnered more than $4 billion in just over three weeks, he says. With that in mind, the mission's $6 billion price tag "is actually a bargain." 

In fact, there will be a lot more to watch than the launch and landing. Even today, visitors to the Mars One website can check out public videos from applicants and vote on who they like the most. Those liked more will be more likely to go on to the next round of astronaut selection. Future rounds will be televised: Participants in each nation will square off against each other with only a single participant making his or her way to years of training. That final round will be an internationally broadcast show in which six teams of four vie for the chance to get voted off of Earth.

Here is the call for applicants:


Enjoy!

We never had air conditioning growing up, and the closest we’d get was a visit to the refrigerator. You’d open the door, and let the cool air wash over you, as you pretended to look for something to eat. Of course, after a few glorious minutes, mom would figure out what was going on, and yell to close the door. I wish I had known about this strawberry granita recipe back then.

You can make and serve this gorgeous granita any time, but it’s really best enjoyed during the summer months. Not only because it’s cold and delicious, but also because it forces you to stick your hot, sweaty face in the freezer four or five times to stir. It’s such a bracing and refreshing experience that I almost feel sorry for people that do have AC. Almost.

Besides a welcomed respite from the heat, this mandatory, periodical forking creates the dessert’s signature texture. By breaking up the ice crystals as the granita freezes, you’ll get what looks exactly like ground granite, which is where this sweet treat’s name actually comes from.

I know it’s still early spring, but strawberries are beautiful right now, so why not practice a few times before the serious heat waves hit? By the way, let me be the first one to say it to you this year…it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. I hope you give this a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 8 servings:
(Note: Yes, this will work with other fruit and berry purees)

2 pounds strawberries

1 cup water

1/3 to 1/2 cup white sugar (depending on sweetness of berries)
(Note: I've not tried other types of sweeteners)

1/4 tsp balsamic vinegar

1/2 tsp lemon juice

very small pinch of salt
*Note: freezing times will vary greatly depending on how cold, empty, large, etc., your freezer is. Just keep checking and forking!

View the complete recipe

by Salman Hameed

Here is the least surprising hypocritical poll result: Almost two-third of Americans feel that it is okay for the US government to launch airstrikes against suspected terrorists in other countries. But only 13% say that the drone strikes are okay if the suspect is a US citizen living in the United States. I'm sure that this number would go up if it is known the suspect is a Muslim! (actually, this is not a joke. This is probably true).

Here is the Gallup poll:

And don't worry. While the Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on anything, there is a bipartisan support for this particular drone view (yay - for bipartisanship!). Here is the same question on party-lines (Democrats come off slightly better):

Two somewhat related things. First, for your entertainment purposes, watch this painful Daily Show segment about the Fox's reaction of the Boston marathon bombing suspects' religious identity: "ban Muslim students from entering the US"; "wiretap mosques"; and of course from the incomparable Ann Coulter: "jail time for wearing hijab". Can anyone get away with saying this kind of stuff about any other ethnic or religious group?

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Weak Constitution
www.thedailyshow.com
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Second, here is a fantastic article on the reasons why the US-Pakistan relations took a nose-dive in the last couple of years. Here is Mark Mazzetti's article, How a single spy helped turn Pakistan against the United States. I highly recommend this article as it gets the situation in Pakistan. But Mark Mazzetti has been writing about the increasing militarization of the CIA - and that Pakistan is the test case for its new role. I haven't read his book, The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the End of the Earth yet, but it looks fantastic and it has long sections on CIA's war in Pakistan.

In any case, here are some highlights from the NYT article which primarily about the Davis Affair in Lahore:

A city once ruled by Mughals, Sikhs and the British, Lahore is Pakistan’s cultural and intellectual capital, and for nearly a decade it had been on the fringes of America’s secret war in Pakistan. But the map of Islamic militancy inside Pakistan had been redrawn in recent years, and factions that once had little contact with one another had cemented new alliances in response to the C.I.A.’s drone campaign in the western mountains. Groups that had focused most of their energies dreaming up bloody attacks against India were now aligning themselves closer to Al Qaeda and other organizations with a thirst for global jihad. Some of these groups had deep roots in Lahore, which was why Davis and a C.I.A. team set up operations from a safe house in the city.

So the CIA's drone campaign has united disparate militant groups against the US. Talk about unintended consequences.

And here is a flavor of the way CIA's militarism has trumped diplomacy of the State Department. This is chilly:

The Davis affair led Langley to order dozens of covert officers out of Pakistan in the hope of lowering the temperature in the C.I.A. – I.S.I. relationship. Ambassador Munter issued a public statement shortly after the bizarre court proceeding, saying he was “grateful for the generosity” of the families and expressing regret for the entire incident and the “suffering it caused.” 

But the secret deal only fueled the anger in Pakistan, and anti-American protests flared in major cities, including Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore. Demonstrators set tires ablaze, clashed with Pakistani riot police and brandished placards with slogans like “I Am Raymond Davis, Give Me a Break, I Am Just a C.I.A. Hit Man.” 

The entire episode — and bin Laden’s killing in Abbottabad later that spring — extinguished any lingering productive relations between the United States and Pakistan. Leon Panetta’s relationship with General Pasha, the I.S.I. chief, was poisoned, and the already small number of Obama officials pushing for better relations between Washington and Islamabad dwindled even further. Munter was reporting daily back to Washington about the negative impact of the armed-drone campaign and about how the C.I.A. seemed to be conducting a war in a vacuum, oblivious to the ramifications that the drone strikes were having on American relations with Pakistan’s government. 

The C.I.A. had approval from the White House to carry out missile strikes in Pakistan even when the agency’s targeters weren’t certain about exactly whom they were killing. Under the rules of so-called “signature strikes,” decisions about whether to fire missiles from drones could be made based on patterns of activity deemed suspicious. For instance, if a group of young “military-age males” were observed moving in and out of a suspected militant training camp and were thought to be carrying weapons, they could be considered legitimate targets. American officials admit it is nearly impossible to judge a person’s age from thousands of feet in the air, and in Pakistan’s tribal areas, adolescent boys are often among militant fighters. Using such broad definitions to determine who was a “combatant” and therefore a legitimate target allowed Obama administration officials at one point to claim that the escalation of drone strikes in Pakistan had not killed any civilians for a year. It was something of a trick of logic: in an area of known militant activity, all military-age males could be considered enemy fighters. Therefore, anyone who was killed in a drone strike there was categorized as a combatant. 

The perils of this approach were laid bare on March 17, 2011, the day after Davis was released from prison and spirited out of the country. C.I.A. drones attacked a tribal council meeting in the village of Datta Khel, in North Waziristan, killing dozens of men. 

Ambassador Munter and some at the Pentagon thought the timing of the strike was disastrous, and some American officials suspected that the massive strike was the C.I.A. venting its anger about the Davis episode. More important, however, many American officials believed that the strike was botched, and that dozens of people died who shouldn’t have. 

Other American officials came to the C.I.A.’s defense, saying that the tribal gathering was in fact a meeting of senior militants and therefore a legitimate target. But the drone strike unleashed a furious response in Pakistan, and street protests in Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar forced the temporary closure of American consulates in those cities.
Munter said he believed that the C.I.A. was being reckless and that his position as ambassador was becoming untenable. His relationship with the C.I.A. station chief in Islamabad, already strained because of their disagreements over the handling of the Davis case, deteriorated even further when Munter demanded that the C.I.A. give him the chance to call off specific missile strikes. During one screaming match between the two men, Munter tried to make sure the station chief knew who was in charge, only to be reminded of who really held the power in Pakistan. 

“You’re not the ambassador!” Munter shouted. 

“You’re right, and I don’t want to be the ambassador,” the station chief replied. 

This turf battle spread to Washington, and a month after Bin Laden was killed, President Obama’s top advisers were arguing in a National Security Council meeting over who really was in charge in Pakistan. At the June 2011 meeting, Munter, who participated via secure video link, began making his case that he should have veto power over specific drone strikes. 

Panetta cut Munter off, telling him that the C.I.A. had the authority to do what it wanted in Pakistan. It didn’t need to get the ambassador’s approval for anything. 

“I don’t work for you,” Panetta told Munter, according to several people at the meeting.
But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came to Munter’s defense. She turned to Panetta and told him that he was wrong to assume he could steamroll the ambassador and launch strikes against his approval. 

“No, Hillary,” Panetta said, “it’s you who are flat wrong.” 

There was a stunned silence, and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon tried to regain control of the meeting. In the weeks that followed, Donilon brokered a compromise of sorts: Munter would be allowed to object to specific drone strikes, but the C.I.A. could still press its case to the White House and get approval for strikes even over the ambassador’s objections. Obama’s C.I.A. had, in essence, won yet again.         

Read the full article here. 

by Salman Hameed

For those interested in history of science, there is a new book coming out on the work of Ibn al-Nafis: Science and Religion in Mamluk Egypt: Ibn al-Nafis, Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection by Nahyan Fancy. Here are the details:

The discovery of the pulmonary transit of blood was a ground-breaking discovery in the history of the life sciences, and a prerequisite for William Harvey’s fully developed theory of blood circulation three centuries later. This book is the first attempt at understanding Ibn al-Nafis’s anatomical discovery from within the medical and theological works of this thirteenth century physician-jurist, and his broader social, religious and intellectual contexts. 

Although Ibn al-Nafis did not posit a theory of blood circulation, he nevertheless challenged the reigning Galenic and Avicennian physiological theories, and the then prevailing anatomical understandings of the heart. Far from being a happy guess, Ibn al-Nafis’s anatomical result is rooted in an extensive re-evaluation of the reigning medical theories. Moreover, this book shows that Ibn al-Nafis’s re-evaluation is itself a result of his engagement with post-Avicennian debates on the relationship between reason and revelation, and the rationality of traditionalist beliefs, such as bodily resurrection. 

Breaking new ground by showing how medicine, philosophy and theology were intertwined in the intellectual fabric of pre-modern Islamic societies, Science and Religion in Mamluk Egypt will be of interest to students and scholars of the History of Science, the History of Medicine and Islamic Studies. 

There are many baked products that you could make at home, but because of time, effort, and quality issues, probably shouldn’t. Fortunately, pita bread is not on that list. The dough is easy to make, and much like the flour tortillas we did, the taste and texture of the freshly made product is far superior to anything that comes with a twist tie.

The method is very straightforward, but I wanted to take a moment to talk about production. As you’ll see in the clip, after you roll the pita dough out, you’ll need to let it rest for 5 minutes before grilling. Since each one takes about 5-6 minutes in the pan, while one is cooking, you’ll want to roll the next, so it’s rested and ready to puff.

Speaking of “puff,” don’t be too upset if yours don’t go full balloon. Sometimes they all puff, sometimes some, and sometimes none. This is the way of the pita. But the good news is, even if they don’t fully puff, you should still get some sort of internal pocket with which to stuff. Even if you don’t, it’s okay…you’ll just call them “flatbread” instead! I hope you give these a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 8 pita breads:

For the sponge mix:

1 pkg dry active yeast (2 1/4 tsp)

1 cup warm water (about 90-100 degrees F.)

1 cup (4.5 oz by weight) all-purpose flour

Then:

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

1 3/4 teaspoons salt

1 3/4 to 2 cups all-purpose flour, or until a soft, slightly sticky dough forms (about 8-9 oz by weight)

*Let rise about 2 hours, or until doubled in size. Form 8 small, round loaves, let rise 30 minutes. Roll out and let rest 5 minutes before grilling.

View the complete recipe

by Salman Hameed

By now you have been saturated about the causes for last week's bombings. And yes - things are more much more complicated than "Islam is the motivation for bombings". I would like to point you to two articles that provide a nuanced analysis of the reasons why some young Muslims living in western Europe or in the US turn to violence. The first article is by Olivier Roy - who I think is one of the most interesting thinkers on the topic of Islam and globalization. If you have a chance, you should definitely read Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah. The second article is by Scott Atran. He also has been fantastic work investigating the reasons for radicalization amongst younger Muslims. He was also our speaker for our Science and Religion Lecture Series at Hampshire College and you can see the video of his talk For Friend and Faith: The Paths and Barriers to Political Violence.

Here is first an intro of Olivier Roy's work in The New Republic:

Roy’s view is relevant in understanding the alleged Boston marathon bombers. A decade ago, Roy was pointing out that al Qaeda was drawing many of its recruits from Western Europe rather than from Saudi Arabia or Palestine or Pakistan. He saw al Qaeda as a product of the failure of Arab nationalism and Marxism-Leninism to establish viable popular societies. Its tactics and outlook derived from the Red Army Faction or Red Brigades or the secular Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine rather than from the Koran or from religious factions within Islam. Al Qaeda, Roy wrote in The Illusions of September 11, is “a junction of a radicalized Islam with a shrill anti-imperialism reshaped by globalization.” 

Accordingly, Roy rejected the idea that al Qaeda’s adherents in Europe were simply products of Islam and that their motivation should be seen as religious. Instead, he believed, they sought what he called an “imaginary Ummah,” a radical community of belief that was not strictly speaking part of the ordinary world of Islamic belief. That’s where I thought Roy’s analysis might be relevant to understanding Boston and the Tsarnaev brothers. 

It seemed to me that the suspected brothers could be understood as further extensions of Roy’s thesis. Like the Fort Hood terrorist, Nidal Malik Hasan, they don’t appear to be products of organized religion or organized politics. They represent, in effect, the reductio ad absurdum of al Qaeda’s global politics, which never had a realistic objective to begin with. A new caliphate? With Hasan or the Tsarnaevs, the act itself becomes the objective – an awful theaterical spectacle in which the terrorists are directors and stars.

And here is the direct response from Roy Olivier:

I wanted to ask you about the two brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who allegedly set off the two bombs at the Boston Marathon.  In your book, Globalized Islam, you recounted how many terrorists who act in the name of Islam were brought up in Western Europe rather than in the Middle East and who are often provoked by events outside the Middle East. Are these two brothers, who were largely raised in the United States, more evidence for your thesis? 

Yes, my idea from the beginning was that Al Qaeda and the people who used the mark of Al Qaeda were not really concerned with the core—with the Middle East, the Middle East of Palestine. They were more concerned by the periphery of the Middle East than the core of the Middle East. They were usually more concerned with Bosnia and Afghanistan, Chechnya at the end of the ‘90s; it is now Mali, Mauritania and Yemen, which is the only place where they are strong. Most of these guys have a global trajectory, they were born in one place, they go to fight somewhere else. These guys were born in Kyrgyzstan, they went to Dagestan, they speak Russian, they came to the United States very young,  they were educated in the United States, they speak English without an accent and so on. 

And they seemed to have discovered Islam in the United States rather than in Dagestan or Kyrgyzstan? 

Same thing with Mohammed Merah, the killer in Toulouse last year. They are self-radicalizing in a Western environment.

And this is the key point:

In your book, and also in your previous book on political Islam, you describe a transition from the nationalist and Marxist-Leninist movements in the Middle East after World War II to a stateless movement like Al Qaeda. Now we have something beyond that, where the terrorists may not even belong to, or be under orders from a specific group, but may only have been influenced by a radical preacher they heard. I am thinking of the Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan who killed thirteen people at Fort Hood in 2009. 

Yes, globalization and individualization are the two terms. Instead of organization, they connect through the Internet. They connect to a virtual Ummah not to a real society. For instance, most of them didn’t socialize in a Western community. They may have gone to mosques, but they were never an integral part of a congregation, they have no real life, social life. Their social life is through the Internet, all of them.

Read the full article here.

Scott Atran, overall, gives the same reasons. However, he is also concerned about the over-eaction of the media and the US. Here he is writing in Foreign Policy:

Under sponsorship by the Defense Department, my multidisciplinary, multinational research team has been conducting field studies and analyses of the mental and social processes involved in radicalization at home and abroad. Our findings indicate that terrorist plotters against Western civilian populations tend not to be parts of sophisticated, foreign-based command-and-control organizations. Rather, they belong to loose, homegrown networks of family and friends who die not just for a cause, but for each other. Jihadists pretty much span the population's normal distribution: There are very few psychopaths and sociopaths, few brilliant thinkers and strategists. Jihadi wannabes today are mostly emerging adults in transitional stages of their lives -- students, immigrants, in search of jobs or companions -- who are especially prone to movements that promise a meaningful cause, camaraderie, adventure, and glory. Most have a secular education, becoming "born again" into the jihadi cause in their late teens or 20s. The path to radicalization can take years, months, or just days, depending on personal vulnerabilities and the influence of others. 

Occasionally there is a hookup with a relative, or a friend of a friend, who has some overseas connection to someone who can get them a bit of training and motivation to pack a bag of explosives or pull a trigger, but the Internet and social media are usually sufficient for radicalization and even operational preparation. 

The result is not a hierarchic, centrally commanded terrorist movement but a decentralized, self-organizing, and constantly evolving complex of social networks based on contingent adaptations to changing events. These are no real "cells," but only clusters of mostly young men who motivate one another within "brotherhoods" of real and fictive kin. Often, in fact, there is an older brother figure, a dominant personality who mobilizes others in the group. But rarely is there an overriding authority or father figure. (Notably, for these transitional youth, there's often an absence of a real father). 

Some of the most successful plots, such as the Madrid and London bombings, are so anarchic, fluid, and improbable that they succeeded in evading detection despite the fact that intelligence and law enforcement agencies had been following some of the actors for some time. Three key elements characterize the "organized anarchy" that typifies modern violent Islamic activism: Ultimate goals are vague and superficial (often no deeper than revenge against perceived injustice against Muslims around the world); modes of action are decided pragmatically on the basis of trial and error or based on the residue of learning from accidents of past experience; and those who join are not recruited but are locally linked self-seekers -- often from the same family, neighborhood, or Internet chat room -- whose connection to global jihad is more virtual than material. Al Qaeda and associates do not so much recruit as attract disaffected individuals who have already decided to embark on the path to violent extremism with the help of family, friends, or a few fellow travelers. 

And here is the possible reason for their radicalization:

 Like the young men who carried out the Madrid and London attacks, most homegrown jihadi plotters first hook up with the broad protest sentiment against "the global attack on Islam" before moving into a narrower parallel universe. They cut ties with former companions who they believe are too timid to act and cement bonds with those who are willing to strike. They emerge from their cocoon with strong commitment to strike and die if necessary, but without any clear contingency planning for what might happen after the initial attack. 

For the first time in history, a massive, media-driven political awakening has been occurring -- spurred by the advent of the Internet, social media, and cable television -- that can, on the one hand, motivate universal respect for human rights while, on the other, enable, say, Muslims from Borneo to sacrifice themselves for Palestine, Afghanistan, or Chechnya (despite almost no contact or shared history for the last 50,000 years or so). 

When perceived global injustice resonates with frustrated personal aspirations, moral outrage gives universal meaning and provides the push to radicalization and violent action.
But the popular notion of a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West is woefully misleading. Violent extremism represents not the resurgence of traditional cultures, but their collapse, as young people unmoored from millennial traditions flail about in search of a social identity that gives personal significance. This is the dark side of globalization. 

And of course, this also reminded me of Mohsin Hamid's wonderful book, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (the film version by Mira Nair is being released in the US next week).

Here is Atran again:

Take Faisal Shahzad, the would-be bomber of Times Square in 2010, or Maj. Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009. Both were apparently inspired by the online rhetoric of Anwar al-Awlaki, a former preacher at a Northern Virginia mosque who was killed by a U.S. drone in Yemen in 2011. Although many commentators leapt to the conclusion that Awlaki and his ilk deviously brainwashed and recruited Shahzad and Hassan, in fact they sought out the popular Internet preacher because they were already radicalized to the point of wanting further guidance to act. As Defense Department terrorism consultant Marc Sageman notes: "Just like you saw Major Hasan send 21 emails to al-Awlaki, who sends him two back, you have people seeking these guys and asking them for advice." More than 80 percent of plots in both Europe and the United States were concocted from the bottom up by mostly young people just hooking up with one another. 

Especially for young men, mortal combat with a "band of brothers" in the service of a great cause is both the ultimate adventure and a road to esteem in the hearts of their peers. For many disaffected souls today, jihad is a heroic cause -- a promise that anyone from anywhere can make a mark against the most powerful country in the history of the world. But because would-be jihadists best thrive and act in small groups and among networks of family and friends -- not in large movements or armies -- their threat can only match their ambitions if fueled way beyond actual strength. And publicity is the oxygen that fires modern terrorism. 

Read the full article here.

by Salman Hameed

The Center for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies (SSiMS) and the School of Cognitive Science at Hampshire College are hosting a lunch talk tomorrow (Wednesday) by Elise K. Burton. Join us if you are in the area. Here are the details of the talk:


Evolution in Middle Eastern Education Policy: The View from Iran, Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia
by Elise K. Burton, PhD candidate at Harvard University

Abstract: To date, much research on the reception and teaching of evolutionary theory in Muslim societies has assumed that religious attitudes take precedence in determining whether and how evolution is publicly accepted, rejected, or taught in schools. A corollary of these assumptions has been that countries governed on Islamic theocracy models would be more averse than "secular democracies" to including evolution within their national curricula. But are Islam and secularism always the right categories of analysis? A comparative study of science education policy in Middle Eastern states found that neither Islam as a state religion, nor the level of state religiosity, was sufficient to predicting the treatment of evolution within national science curricula. These results call for a nuanced understanding of the position of science in Muslim-majority states today, and understanding that incorporates historical, political and sociological contexts alongside theology, belief, and culture.

Biographical statement: Elise K. Burton is a PhD candidate in Middle Eastern Studies & History at Harvard University. Her dissertation research examines the history of human biology research and its relationship to ethnic nationalist politics in 20th century Iran, Turkey, and Israel.

In the Adele Simmons Hall (ASH) Lobby at Hampshire College.      
A light lunch will be available at noon.

I’ve wanted to turn our famous veggie burger recipe into a meatless meatballs recipe for a long time now, and figured there would be no more appropriate occasion than Earth Day to reveal the results. After all, as I joke about in the clip, eating mushrooms is about as close to literally consuming the earth as you can get.

Despite being completely free of meat, at least the animal kind, these “meatballs” were fantastic. Thanks to a thorough browning, the mushrooms provided more than enough savoriness, and the garlic, cheese, and parsley did the rest. As impressive as I thought the taste was, what really blew me away was how close the texture was to actual meatballs.

For me, the true test of any alternative meatless recipe is whether I would eat it again, based on taste and texture alone, and not just because it’s meatless. In this case, I would…many times over. No, I’m not giving up real meatballs, but for a delicious and vegetarian-friendly change of pace, these really were tremendous.

So, whether you're going to make these because you’re a vegetarian who has been searching for a meatless version, or you’re a hard-core meat eater who just can’t believe your ears and eyes, I hope you give these a try soon. Have a happy Earth Day, and as always, enjoy!

Ingredients for 16 small meatballs:

(recipe can easily be doubled!)

1 pound white mushrooms, chopped into very small pieces

2 tbsp olive oil

pinch of salt to sauté mushrooms

1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup minced onions

4 minced garlic cloves

1/2 cup instant oatmeal

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

packed 1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley

1 ounce by weight, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, very finely grated on a microplane

(Note: it looks like a ton of cheese in the video, but it was only 1-oz. Because I used a microplane to grate it, it created a huge looking pile of cheese. It would be about 1/2 cup if you measure, but use weight for this ingredient!)

1 tsp salt

freshly ground black pepper and cayenne to taste
pinch of dried oregano

2 eggs

3 cups of your favorite pasta sauce.

*Let mixture sit overnight in fridge. Bake meatballs for 12-15 at 450 degrees F., then simmer in sauce for 30-60 minutes before serving.

View the complete recipe

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by Salman Hameed

Globalization and modernity are bringing issues of freedom of speech and religious freedom to the forefront everywhere, including in Muslim societies. There is and will be an intense debate about the shaping of "the" Islamic response to these changes. However, as has been the case historically, we are going to see a variety of responses. The focus in much of the discussions will be on the nature of faith - public versus private. The new trend of using "insult to Islam" to persecute a broad range of opposition - from non-orthodox sects to atheism - is one of the battlegrounds on the nature of contemporary faith in Islam. The issue of homosexuality, certainly, is another location where we are doing to see an intense debate over the meaning of faith in the 21st century. But even apart from such hot-buttion topics, Muslims are taking diverse stands on a whole variety of issues. Can and should women lead men in prayers? Is it necessary to sacrifice animals for Eid al Adha? And of course, then we have also Punk Islam - and all bets are off with punk!

In the US, there is now group called Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV). They are being equated with Reform Judaism and with Unitarian Universalism. They have nine chapters so far and I think they are have a tremendous potential to grow and to address some of the contemporary issues in religion and society. Perhaps, most importantly, they provide an inclusive umbrella to Muslims with diverse values. This is how they define their mission:

Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV) is an inclusive community rooted in the traditional Qur’anic ideals of human dignity and social justice. We welcome all who are interested in discussing, promoting and working for the implementation of progressive values — human rights, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state — as well as inclusive and tolerant understandings of Islam. 

It is absolutely refreshing to see the presence of such a group!

One of their members is an Imam in a mosque in Washington, D.C. He is gay and supports gay marriage in the US. This is phenomenal! About a year ago, I had a post about a French imam who supervised the wedding of two Muslim men. I thought at the time that this cannot be the only place incident of this nature, when there already are Muslim LGBT groups (such as The Muslims Alliance for Gender and Sexual Diversity) and outspoken activists like Irshad Manji.

The Washington Imam's support for gay marriage fits perfectly in this context. It is also a nice contrast to the low-level of discourse (predominantly from the Republicans) on gay marriage in the US. Here is the story from the Washington Post:

Imam Daayiee Abdullah arrives by bus, sweaty and lugging a green bag stuffed with a

Koran, two books of poetry by Persian mystic Rumi and three Islamic prayer rugs. Tonight, he’s speaking to a room full of young, gay activists and progressives after a screening of the documentary “I Am Gay and Muslim” at the Human Rights Campaign’s bright white Equality Center in downtown Washington. 

But when the openly gay imam takes the stage, he stuns even this audience.
“I think we’re at the start of a movement: a more inclusive Islam in America,” says Abdullah, who runs Washington’s Light of Reform mosque and is thought to be the only publicly gay Muslim leader in the Western Hemisphere. 

“So if you have any same-sex marriages,” he says with a soft smile and a shrug, “I’m available.”

Some young Muslims in attendance mumble, “Wow!” and “Seriously?” 

As more states legalize same-sex marriage, it’s easy to forget that segments of society, particularly in immigrant communities, regard homosexuality as a potentially deadly secret — one rarely revealed to relatives in places like Sudan or Saudi Arabia, where being gay can be punishable by death. 

For many gay immigrants, the values of their adopted and native countries are at odds. The gay Muslim Americans who live relatively public lives in the Washington area are a case in point. They date openly, and are often out at work, but when it comes to getting married, they don’t dare share the news with family back home, who could become targets of abuse or economic boycotts — and even jailed — if it became common knowledge. 

Abdullah, an African American convert to Islam who is part of a national network of progressive Muslims, is the keeper of their secrets. He quietly helps gay Muslim couples get married, counseling them beforehand and keeping the ceremonies low-profile.

Read the full article here.

To read the content of this blog post, please click on the link below:
http://www.inspiremeasap.blogspot.com/2013/04/mothers-day-portraits.html

by Salman Hameed

For your Saturday, here is a fantastic talk by Robert Hazen on how to think about the questions of the origins of life on Earth. There is a good chance that we will know about the origins of the life within the next decade or two. The strength of the talk, however, lies in the fact that it show how to break-up a larger question into a series of smaller steps and then how to test those hypotheses. Also check out this excellent Teaching Company course, Origins of Life, also by Robert Hazen.

Here is the video of his lecture at Hampshire College. Enjoy!



Here is the Question and Answer session: