I think Somali community centers are trying to provide such services and they are even holding conferences and discussion groups. It takes more than an organization to reestablish the ideal family structure. I don’t know what an organization can do to change this. Maybe the organization can start a campaign to spread the message through posters, pamphlets and website with resources and information for Somali families.

Smilez, maybe you just like recycling,or reliving a good item purchased, or you might be a brand slave. Whatever it might be, keep on doin it if it makes you feel good.

Rahima - cultural predilection over emotional/physical wants are a form of hidden and enlighten biases. The decision is not necessarily based on religion, but there is a cultural divide and relevancy that’s at play here. And surely, you do recommend such divide between cultures when it comes inter marriages. We must encourage understanding, mergers and the emergence cross-cultural identities, after all were living in the global village. If your willing to segregate cultures I wonder what other criteria's you have in pre-screening potential mates. Clearly Cupid is not blind nor is he ****** over love and lust - his arrow is defined, and there are millions out there who are propagating the must have conditions. Rahima, believe in the human potential movement

Than what did you want me to say, Wooow and more woows and I liked the show, wooow, and more wooow's. and the sarcasm smiley -------> WooooooooW

Modesty, I may have an explanation for you as to why practicing people are called conservative or rather overtly religious people, those with full ‘attire’. This is so because a conservative person, is a person who is trying to conserve something, whether they be politics or beliefs. See often its all in the meaning, when we say conservative we think the way the media has identified this term with political connotations, and perhaps the people your engaging this discourse with are not taking an appositional stance to the mainstream meaning. This shouldn’t anger you, rather you should decode your argument in a modest manner. After all, labeling is something we do best as Somalis - just becuz a person prays five times a day we call them religious. Not to mention many of us say were Muslims but were not practicing and as soon as someone makes a comment about Islam or infringes on our core beliefs we get anger without an adequate response -- in sum we tent to be reactionary. By the way just wearing the hijab is not wearing the full attire and secondly, I know sisters who wear the hijab while wearing tight and revealing clothes. So that should anger you as well.

I have seen an explosive coverage by one of them 20/20 typa shows, they had some ex worker at the prison who exposed everything they was doing to the prisoners. We can do a lot of things, we can volunteer or work with international organizations that are monitoring these things - if the issue can be made public, surely something will be done about it.

Every western country with a ’democratic’ values will instill some notions of freedom and cultural influence. Canada is a great country, have you checked those reports on the best countries to be living in, I believe Canada was in the top five, although it has recently dropped, and now considered to be in the top 10. Somali life you say, well everywhere you go people will be selling, dealing and using drugs. In terms of gun violence - I suggest you watch Bowling for Columbine - you might start to like Canada. Lastly, if your friend is considering in buying a gun, than he/she might be associating with the wrong crowd, even if they was rolling with the ‘gangster crowd‘ they aint saying much. I mean everybody, I mean everybody is on that peanut butter jelly / cookie cutter style of gangsterism. Don’t let imitators of the lifestyles of the poor and shameless intimidate you.

As long as the person is Muslim it should be fine, but in general there are people who discriminate against other Muslims based on their ethnic backgrounds, and this is not acceptable in Islam. I mean Allah sees us and judges us fairly. I say marry whomever you want as long as they’re Muslim, I believe for men, the woman does not have to Muslim, but for a woman the man has to be Muslim.

SOL - Threats, connecting every fabric of your being.

I do agree that LOST is an amazing show with interesting characters. I like the way the characters reflect back on their misspent lives - not to mention, every character has a unique past, why? maybe all the boring people on the plain died. The show has been picked up for a second season, maybe they’ll open the giant container after all. We might meet the monsters, and the other creatures on the island. I remember seeing an over aggressive polar bear - strange setting for a polar bear. I do recommend this show for other nomads, after all were in a strange land and for most of us our historical experiences are rooted in a faraway land, and just like the characters in this show, we often reflect back on our post-colonial identities. Watching this show is like a pseudo-Freudian explanation of our past existences. The characters learn from their mistakes and we see them grow emotionally through forced self-evaluation, induced by spatial constraints - I mean they‘re stuck on an island with no where to go just like us.

okay so one on one dating is not allowed, but i have seen group dating,by this i mean people who chill together on the regular in groups. Is this dating, becuz a friend of mine married one of the group members -- and they're very happy. I would say group dating might be better becuz there's 'less sinning', you'll already a have a support group if the relationship, sorry if the marriage is not going well, and etc. So what about group dating, somalis do that a lot. Is it haram?

Currently - I'm listening to ... Keane - This Is The Last Time Kanye West - Family Business Mobb Deep - Burn The Killers - Mr. Brightside Modest Mouse - Float On Talib Kweli - Around My Way Nas - Rewind Gang Starr - Discipline Jay-Z - U Don’t Know Mos Def - Mr. Nigga

Something sad for you Somali_Patriot --------------------------------- Thoughts on Alcohol You empower my friends temporarily, relieving them of pain, sorrow, sadness and the feeling of nothingness. You help them live their moments, you make them strong, powerful, important, loved, self-accepting - you make them their ideal beings. Yet you lie to them, you offer them an illusion of their egos - you sell them their own imagination back to them as though they were real . But I see through you in your well put together branding, and packing boxes. They are ravaged with rage upon the discovery of the lie, its a mellow the soul and spirit confront their doings while they sip their poison poised yet in their anger filled thoughts. Their past lives collide -- perfect misery, their controlled chaos at last be accepted to be out lasted for infinity plus none.

You need to answer a few basic questions before getting someone to do your website, How much are u willing to pay? How big is your website going to be? Is it a consumer based website? Will you required constant updates? Are you building a brand to sell tangible goods or intangible goods such as information based sites for news and commentary. Are you looking to build a portfolio through this site, or you just want to upload completed material on there. You need to consider a full analysis of your project, a web designer will take money and might charge you extra in the long run. Ask the web designer to teach you how to do updates , it’ll be cheaper in the long run and you will learn in the process. One advice I would give u is this, have your content ready before you contact the designer, it will save you time and money. btw, pick a designer that understands your concept and is willing to advance your project, or else you might end up with a mediocre website.

My hobby is collecting flyers [no joke] - I like collecting party flyers, magazine advertising, graffiti markers and posters. I also collect products that have neat or interesting packaging such as CD’s, DVD’s, beverage bottles and customized air force ones. Since I work in the multimedia industry, I often draw inspiration from these items.

Hockey is really boring and pointless- skating around, you won’t see much action - If I want to see fighting I get that from boxing. In addition to that, we like watching the sports we play - that’s why you don’t see many Somali people liking hockey becuz they don’t play the sport - on the other hand we like soccer and b-ball becuz we play them.

Its clear that Somali women are exceptional in their efforts to save the Somali race - we have single mothers raising many of the youths of today. They’re the ones encouraging our youths - raising good children. They are struggling financially, and emotionally. So what than? Let’s not forget there are men who are involved in the community, raising their families, and equally contributing to the Somali potential movement. Rahima - I think Somali brothers are doing their best and they are trying. Somali girls are excelling at a faster rate than boys becuz they get special attention, they are raised as commodities to be traded in the post-party phase - the its time to get serious, religious, and married phase of men - as Farxan argues. That is why men are able to recover from their previous misfortunate, and women are killed, disowned, mistreated, and get culturally alienated, when they become bad girls. Its a double standard, but hey its man’s world.

I too read No Logo in university - it was a good analysis on globalization and brand power. But Naomi only presents the problem to her readers. She has also acknowledged this in her recent work, The Take saying that many of her audiences wanted to get some suggestions.

What can we do as Somalis? Can we formulate new forms of Somali discourse and activisms to fix the problems that we are facing now? Or can we adopt these liberal values as mechanisms for change? Naomi Klein’s book No Logo shows us the power of corporations and their abilities to corrupt the human psyche. I’m sure many of you have read the book, or seen the DVD, or have read many of the post-consumer academic jargon culture. Here’s the problem, Klein does not offer solutions to the problems that she talks about in her book. To me, she is a rich liberal who loves living in her mid-19Century Spadina loft in downtown Toronto, and making millions from her books and documentaries with her husband. We buy from corporations because its cheaper for us, many of the poor in this world depend on corporations to provide them with jobs, and cheap products and third world workers depend on the Nikes, and the Coca Colas of the world, even in Somalia Coke is present there, as I seen Rahima pictures. Again, no logo means no caano. We know the problems of globalization, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, the clash of tyrants, the threats of modernity and the spread of American cultural imperialism. Recently this has been a phenomenon in the Somali community – many students have taken up the challenge of politically getting involved in the community. However, they have been stagnant in their plight to save the Somali race. Unknowingly they have been indoctrinated in the new movement, the alternative movement. The new culture of activism – the culture that is propagated by likes of Naomi Klein, Kalle Lasn http://www.adbusters.org and many other ‘liberal’ activists. Here are my questions to you; have you read Klein’s book, no logo, have you watch her doc The Take, did u like it or did u hate it? What are some of the suggestions you would make as a Somali – or as a global citizen of nowhereian. It seems like Klein and Lasn are telling us that by wearing your Footlocker bought che Guevara t-shit, AdBusters bought black spot shoe and political buttons on your bag or academic looking sports coat – that you can save the world?

Labels can be a bad thing or a good thing, but we Somalis have changed that and have used it to kill each other, remember the civil war, and labels have followed us in the west - Labels make us human - identity is based on labels and the grouping of individuals - we have to be something, we have to be known and remembered - so labels can give us a sense of belonging, labels can ensure us that we exist - we are something, without labels we are nothing, to be something is to be labeled. Again, tribes were supposed to be used for identity purposes, not for murder so in a way labels can be used to descriminate and alienate people.

Come on now, what are you talking about i was just voicing my opinion on here. Lets keep on waving that flag for the moment - that is a form of advertising by the way. Gotta report you.

I would love to be living in Somalia, but lets face it - that’s not looking like an option at the moment. So I would rather be a global citizen, a citizen of Nowherian [Pico Iyer - The Global Soul] We are nomads, we call everywhere home, the earth is our home. I’m conditioning myself to be at home wherever I might be. Currently learning to be an anarchist - to temporarily make Somalia a home.

To be honest, Somali websites use too many colours, they stretch images and they overload the site with content. I think most of them at best displayed -- feeble attempt to sell over sensationalized news. Webmasters often show their lack of design, presentation, and content management. The most annoying thing about Somali websites is that they never archive news from months of weeks ago - they often remove them. Even the sites that try to deliver good design and presentation - lack adequate content and need I say more ARCHIVES.

I got a decent tower at my place - don't know what's in there, but it gets the job done - i use graphic design softwares so it works for the most part. I think its the latest stuff its only a year old. I'm hoping to purchase an ibook or a G5 tower from the good people at apple corp this summer - right now i'm using an old HP home pc [bought 2000] at my moms house.

I remember when i was learning the Koran, i used to wake up at dawn [fajr] - and i remember i used to memorize chapters in matter of hours effortlessly. Even today, I do the same thing, during paper/exam weeks i change my schedule and i find that i‘m more productive that way and stress free.