Corner Office Shaikh

It has been incredibly long time since I posted. Besides being ashamed that I have not written in forever, I have been working on getting an MBA and a MS in Data Science. The pandemic has driven me back to writing, albeit for the purposes of this resource list.

Adjusting to a future economic recession and looking for a job in this environment is nerve wrecking. But I think one of the biggest lessons I have learned this past decade was that the focus should be on the present and what I can control now that touches the future.

I don’t know what the future holds, so I dont try to control it, even in terms of using my brain capacity to think through, around, over, near it. I know that in the present there are things I can do that position me for the future. In this volatile and uncertain time, it is ever more clear that I can’t control stuff in the future.

To that end, I am just sharing a repository of links, articles, and resources I have come across to cope with and manage this time in self-isolation, social-distancing, shelter in placing, quarantining. Hopefully, you find this useful. Will add to it as I get time and new links.

Corona Virus-19:

What is this Corona Virus, how to simplify the science, well watch right here:

TED Talk by Bill Gates on “The Next Outbreak” because you need to understand how public health works and the science behind pandemics. Gates’ breaks it down nicely:

1. Harvard Medical School put out a Covid19 Resource Page.
2. Politico begins exploring the permanent implications and changes the world will be facing post-pandemic, read here.
3. The Atlantic explores the political responses to the pandemic and the sort of implications this will have, read more here if you’re interested in that sort of stuff.
4. How business will be changing drastically due to Covid19 is not simply a matter of immediate certainty, but is actually a longer term “new normal.” This Economist article takes a stab at what these implications may look like.
5. Covid19 also has implications for what Globalization means and the future of the free movement of people, ideas, goods, money, and, well, diseases, here’s a read from Foreign Policy In Focus that I think is good to frame that outlook.
6. How bad will the economic impact be of the Covid19 pandemic recession? This Forbes article does a meticulous job of gathering all the major global banks analysis of expectations on future economic performance, read here.
7. Annie Loewery writing for The Atlantic‘s blog Ideas, says that “No one alive has experienced an economic plunge this sudden” you can read more of her analysis here.
8. Where will the economic impact of the pandemic hit? This article from the Brookings Institute is great place to start exploring that if you are ready to think long-term, check it out here.
9. Islamic legal maxims and Q&A around the way Muslims need to approach this pandemic can be read here via Sh. Mustafa Umar.

Spiritual:

1. Spiritual Calendar for Pandemic – this is a wonderful centralized location of all the various religious (Muslim faith based tradition) opportunities that are happening day-by-day. Browse the calendar and sign up.
2. Its okay to seek out help – Irem Choksy is a licensed mental health professional and a friend, we met through NewGround: Muslim Jewish Partnership for Change. Irem is offering free mental health support for the community in California during the pandemic crisis and you can visit her website for more info.
3. This isolation thing is not easy on a social level, especially when faith makes the companionship and community component to worship so integral to the faithful practices. I can say that as some one who is on the border of being an extrovert and introvert, and a self proclaimed “selectively social” body, this has been hard transition.  I liked Shiekh Mustafa Umars discussion on “How a Muslim Stays Calm in Isolation” check it out below:
4. The Majlis is online – my favorite spot in Southern California headed by my favorite Sheikh and Shaykha duo, Jamaal Diwan and Muslema Purmul, are offering all their programming online. They have always done that but now even more so its a blessing.
5. Quran and Community – put on by SWISS, aka Sh. Suhaib Webbs’ production house. you need to register for it,
6. Islamic Studies Course for High School students – again provided by SWISS, but in this course, Imam Daniel Hernandez of the Pearland Islamic Center, will introduce the Sciences of the Quran and the The Science of Hadith, go here.
7. Physicians of the Heart – a wonderful (FREE) book that discusses the ninety-name names of Allah. Often times we only come from a perspective that looks at ailments from a physical and psychological perspective. There is a spiritual component to our bodies, and we should embrace this as part of our prescription in our lives. Not in exclusion to the other prescriptions but as part of the overall plan. Try using this as a beginning point for the spiritual prescription. Download it here.
8. Sabeel Community has posted the Al-Fath al-Rabbani of Shaykh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani class online. For me its kind of a big thing because we are allegedly descendants of the great Shaikh and this would be my first direct contact with his intellectual work. Besides that personal note, its kind of cool to see these different forms of traditional scholarship rising out of this difficult situation.
9. Perspective: 27 Years of Solitary Confinement: Mother Jones has this amazing article from the perspective of Keith Lamar, who is serving a life sentence and has spent the past 27-years in solitary confinement. It is a worthwhile perspective buster for anyone feeling like they are at their wits end with this social isolation and shelter at home protocols. Through Samantha Micheals, Keith relates how he makes it through solitary confinement, read here.
10. Train like an Astronaut – they spend days and months in space, isolated and caged in to this can. They should know a thing or two about how to manage not going stir-crazy, read here.
11. Cabin Fever – read this Fatherly article on how to avoid cabin-fever here.
12. Karen Armstrong on Loneliness, award winning author and former Nun, speaks about loneliness on CNN, check it out here with Christiane Amanpour.
13. A Case Against Productivity, Now – Nick Martin writes in the New Republic that this is not the time to find new ways to optimize your productivity. “[I]n the face of historic disruption and uncertainty—you can actually get a lot done in home isolation!” Martin argues that America’s hustle culture is the cause of this conclusion, but thats exactly the point – THIS IS NOT A NORMAL THING OR A NORMAL TIME. Read more about his perspective here.

Career & Professional Development:

1. Who’s hiring, freezing, laying off, rescinding offers currently – great tool put together by Candor that is a live update of real time situation for companies. The information is crowdsourced, but incredibly informative and it helps to know in real time what the ground reality is because there are just too many moving parts in such a volatile double-edged environment – economy and public health & safety concerns. Check it out here.

Nature:

1. Monterey Bay Aquarium : you can watch the amazing aquariums ever.
2. The National Parks – you can now explore all these amazing National Parks because of Google, through their Expeditions Pioneer Program allow you to take virtual tours. Start here.
3. Whale Watching – operators are taking folks on a whale watching trip, virtually obviously. Check it out here.
4. The Georgia Aquarium: do you want to watch piranha feed on dinner? Well that just one of the upcoming live webcam events you can view at the Atlanta based aquarium. Check out there website here.
5. The Northern Lights can be live streamed through the awesome folks efforts at the Churchill Northern Studies Center in Manitoba, Canada. They said that through late winter and early spring, these are the best seasons to see the lights. Basically  the perfect time to watch the live stream. Tune in during the darkest hours of the night, which are generally from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. EDT. Explore.org has thelive link here.

Do Hobbies:

1. Coloring Book: Over 113 Museums and libraries around the world have digitized their there collections as part of the Academy of Medicines program to offer up their collection for free in PDF. It has made an annual practice of inviting other libraries, archives, and cultural institutions around the world to upload PDF coloring pages based on their collections for the public’s free download. New York Academy of Medicine calls the program “ColorOurCollection“.
2. Learn Arabic Calligraphy – while not free, you can definitely afford to get it right now if you can afford a little up front cash, check it out here.
3. #DrawWithRob, budding young artists can share their responses to Biddulph’s tutorials, which he plans to share every Tuesday and Thursday at 10am GMT on Twitter, here at #DrawWithRob
4. Video Games for this self-isolation thing – look sometimes, honestly, you dont want to do jack crap. And thats okay. And there is a great link from Wired to give you a clue on what games are worth purchasing (maybe even system?) in this new normal.
5. Reading:
   1. 300,000 books are available in digital format for you to read thanks to the New York Public Library, here. There is a limit of three books that you can borrow because there has been a surge in the app’s usage now that we’re all at home, according to the library.
   2. 10 free digital books – Haymarket Books’ mission is to publish books for changing the world, and they are offering 10 free books (granted, they have a clear political bent), digital downloads, from their catalogue for folks to read.
   3. Listen to books:
      1. Award winning children’s book authors are reading books to kids and live streaming it, check it out here for archived sessions. For new ones, head over to the Kennedy Center here for Lunch Doodles with Mo Williams.
      2. Alice Aspinall –
      3. Ernest Cadorin –
      4. Vanessa Canevaro –
      5. Aidan Cassie –
      6. Anita Daher –
      7. Barbara Derrick –
      8. Zetta Elliott –
      9. Dylan Glynn –
      10. Monique Gray Smith –
      11. Alyxandra Harvey –
      12. Catherine Hernandez –
      13. Nadia L. Hohn –
      14. Rukhsana Khan –
      15. Alice Kuipers –
      16. Andrew Larsen –
      17. Jenny Lee Learn –
      18. Amy Leask –
      19. Kerry MacGregor –
      20. Elly MacKay –
      21. Wendy McLeod MacKnight –
      22. B.R. Myers –
      23. Kenneth Oppel –
      24. Barbara Radecki –
      25. Ahmad Danny Ramadan –
      26. Jerry Rideout –
      27. David A. Robertson –
      28. Esmé Shapiro –
      29. Danika Stone –
      30. Joel A. Sutherland –
      31. Jillian Tamaki –
      32. Nikki Tate –
      33. Vikki VanSickle –
      34. GE White –
      35. Steve Wolfson –
      36. Jessica Young –
      37. Werner Zimmermann –
6. Learn Musical Instruments:
   1. School of Oud is offering free online lessons if you want to learn how to play that oud of yours. Check it out here.
7. Learn to Cook
   1. Knafeh Cafe lets you make knafeh at your own pace by ordering a knafeh kit.
   2. Nona, or Nonna Nerina, is teaching us how to make stellar Italian food, follow along here.
   3. Virtual Vegan Classes via Chef Reina Montenegro of the San Francisco famous restaurants Nicks’ on Mission (and Grand). You need to email this address to get the Zoom info (email info@nicksonmission.com), but its pretty AWESOME to have this intimate access to such a great chef!
   4. My Quarantine Kitchen, features Iranians quarantined in their homes helping us all learn how to make some awesome Iranian food, check it out here.
   5. Bread Ahead, a London Bakery is live-streaming baking lessons on their Instagram account.
   6. 56 Dinners you can make with canned beans – Taste of Home put together a robust list of easy recipes, I maybe trying a few of them out and posting them on my Instagram, check out the recipe link here.
   7. America’s Test Kitchen, my favorite place and go-to food related learning resource online is offering 50 free recipes, check it out.
8. Learn Art

   1. ART of the MOOC: Public Art and Pedagogy, Duke University – this course presents public culture and art in their radically reinenvented contemporary forms. The lectures link major developments of recent decades to wider topics like spatial politics, everyday social structures, and experimental education.

   2. Pyramids of Giza: Ancient Egyptian Art and Archaeology, Harvard University – “Explore the archaeology, history, art, and hieroglyphs surrounding the famous Egyptian Pyramids at Giza. Learn about Old Kingdom pharaohs and elites, tombs, temples, the Sphinx, and how new technology is unlocking their secrets.”

   3. Charting the Avant Garde: From Romanticism to Utopic Abstraction, School of the Art Institute of Chicago – explore all those who pushed the boundaries of rebellion into new heights which this course.

   4. Age of Cathedrals, Yale University – Explores the most astonishing architectural monuments —Gothic cathedrals. Getting a chance to dive into the art, literature, intellectual life, economics, and new social arrangements that arose in the shadow of the cathedrals and the cities they were built in.

   5. Visualizing Japan, taught jointly by Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University of Tokyo – these courses utilize images made by people who experienced the events firsthand, from the modernization of Japan to the post-WWII reconstruction of Japan.The archives of major Japanese cosmetics company Shiseido, on the other hand, explore concepts of modernity and are just one part of the awesomeness that is this course.
   6. Ideas of the History of Graphic Design – California Arts Institute – From the first 19th-century mass-marketing campaigns to the radical, psychedelic imagery of the 1960s and ’70s, this course traces the development of graphic design over the past hundred years.
   7. Comics: Art in Relationship, California College of the Arts – This course offers a look at the fundamental building blocks of the comic book medium.
   8. Psychology of Art and Creativity, University of Central Florida – What is creativity? And can it be measured? Both questions are posed by this course, which focuses on the intersection between art and psychology.

Physical Fitness:

1. Planet Fitness is offering a bunch of their workouts. The workouts will be live-streamed at 7 p.m. ET each day for the next two weeks. And if you can’t make it live, the workouts will be available on-demand on Facebook, go here.
2. Chris Hemsworth wants to work out with you in your living room, he posted on his Instagram: “Hi there all, during this period of self isolation and uncertainty, I am offering six weeks of my health and fitness program @Centrfit for FREE! Go to centr.com and sign-up.” check out his IG post here.
3. Equipment Free Workouts by XPLORE Nutrition is great for those without the workout equipment.

Travel

1. Watch walking tours of places you haven’t been, or want to revisit
2. Explore the most beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites through pictures and videos online
3. Start a list filled with Black-owned restaurants and coffee shops you want to explore
4. Follow Black travel bloggers on social media for some inspiration
5. Watch movies centered around travel.
6. Check out these travel podcasts from Black expats

Distant Learning:

1. Khan Academy – why not, why wouldn’t anyone be checking it out right now, go here.
2. Scholastic Books, the company, its launched a website that has daily courses (free) for students from Pre-kindergarten to grades 6 and higher, check it out here.
3. Lambda School – The recession is hitting, probably time to re-tool. Or maybe there is the situation of lay-offs. Over a million people have claimed unemployment. Check out this opportunity to learn (free until you get a job, then hand over 15% of your salary) and then get a job. Lambda School can help you.
4. Textbooks and books, digital lending– To address this unprecedented global and immediate need for access to reading and research materials, the Internet Archive will suspend waitlists for the 1.4 million (and growing) books in our lending library by creating a National Emergency Library to serve the nation’s displaced learners. This suspension will run through June 30, 2020, or the end of the US national emergency, whichever is later. You can find books to borrow here without worrying about buying digital books for kids (or adults) in order to meet the academic curriculum requirements.

Music:

1. John Legend celebrates shelter-in-place with a home concert called “Together at Home“
2. Erykah Badu performs live and totally kicks rear end, in her bedroom, check it out here.
3. Stay at Home Online Music Festival –

Writing:

1. NY Times has a daily writing routine that you can get your kids to do (or yourself?) –  remote learning for kids maybe. But check it out here.
2. Why People of Color need spaces to write, article written by Kelsey Blackwell in 2018 – such a timely article to revisit and to for all of us to try to create virtual spaces for ourselves to write collectively. Historic moment calls for heroic actions and collective spaces! Thanks for Faith Adiele for getting this on my radar!
3. Camus on Covid19 – NYTimes opinion piece, behind a paywall, but worth while to read it. Given my existential bent, this was a good read, here

Theater &

1. Atlanta’s Center for Puppetry Arts is “digitally open” by live streaming performances and an expanded lineup of digital learning activities and workshops, which are all available for free online.
2. 200 Indigenous Movies, thank you Canada, the gifts you keep giving the world! for Canada’s Film Celebration day, National Film Board of Canada launched the Indigenous cinema website, which is an extensive online library of over 200 films by Indigenous directors — part of a three-year Indigenous Action Plan to “redefine” the NFB’s relationship with Indigenous peoples, skip Netflix and watch these.
3. BroadwayHD, a theatre streaming service, hit the web in 2015 and for a limited time are offering free online access to shows but are usually priced at $8.99 per month or $99.99 for a full year. The trial period is just 7-days, but hey, you can catch a broadway show for free!
4. The 24Hour Plays: Viral Monologues is a Hollywood star studded online event you can watch as actors do 15 minutes of monologue and hand it off to the next actor. Catch it here.

Art & Culture

1. British Museum, London – In the heart of London, filled with stolen art from colonial and imperial plundering, you can discover the ancient Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies, along with hundreds of other cultural awesomeness through virtual tours. Through Googles street view project.
2. Casa Azul – take a tour of Frida Kahlo’s home-turned-museum is up for the taking to all those wanting to do a virtual tour, see here thanks to Google.
3. Museum of Anatolian Civilizations –
4. Hagia Sophia Museum –
5. Ephesus Museum –
6. Zeugma Mosaic Museum –
7. Dolmabahçe palace –
8. Topkapı palace –

9. Jean-Michel Basquiat & Keith Haring Virtual Exhibit – The National Gallery of Victoria in Australia is going online and you get to see some pretty awesome work by Basquiat and Haring who are arguably two of the most influential and significant artists of our time – link here– but they have a lot of other virtual tours and exhibit write ups along with video covering history and biography of artists and movements.

10. Guggenheim Museum, New York – Has the most amazing spiral staircase ever in the world and Google street view lets you walk up it. As you walk round and round, you will see some of the most amazing Impressionist, post-Impressionist, Modernist, and contemporary artworks ever produced – go here.
11. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC – while not every thing is virtual, you can check out a couple of exhibits. Currently you can check out the (American) revolutionary era’s fashion sense,here, thank you Google.
12. Musee d’Orsay, Paris – dozens and dozens of famous French artists are housed in this museum. Monet, Cezanne, Gauguin, Google – French painters working between 1848 to 1914, pretty much leaving their mark on western worlds identity can be found here via Google virtual tour.
13. The Louvre, France: According to Fast Company, the Louvre also offers virtual tours on its website.
14. National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul: Google wants to take you on a tour here too. This popular museum is six floors of Korean awesomeness packing modern art from all around Korea and the world.
15. Pergamon Museum, Berlin:
16. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam:
17. Van Goh Museum, Amsterdam:
18. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles:
19. Uffizi Gallery, Florence: Well-known gallery houses, in the house of the Medici’s, the famous banking family from the Medieval Era, some of the most precious works of Western art ever created. The Medici’s are the cultivators and nurturers of the Renaissance. Google let you visit.
20. MASP, Sao Paulo: The Museu de Arte de São Paulo is a non-profit. Artworks placed on clear perspex frames make it seem like the artwork is hovering in midair makes this seem fairly awesome, check it here thanks to Google.
21. National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City: dedicated to the archaeology and history of Mexico’s pre-Hispanic heritage. I went to this museum and its amazing and inspiring. Thanks to Google, you now too can check out this worthwhile museum by checking it out here.
22. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago: “Explore thousands of artworks in the museum’s wide-ranging collection—from our world-renowned icons to lesser-known gems from every corner of the globe—as well as our books, writings, reference materials, and other resources” here.