Mainly Because Of The Meat

My local supermarket has a small section of the meat case reserved for halal meat. Halal, as you may know, is the Islamic seal of approval that's sort of their equivalent of kosher, though I'm Muslims and Jews alike would have a problem with my saying that.

I just read about a far-right politician in Sweden who also has a problem with halal food. He claimed that eating halal meat makes you Muslim. That comes as news to most people, including most Muslims, who were under the impression that there was a little more to their religion than that. The incident happened a couple of years ago, but somehow with the backlog of neo-Nazi Islamaphobia I'm only finding out about it now.

It may seem like the garden-variety xenophobia, but it got me thinking about how many of us have become Muslims without knowing it. I don't know that I've ever knowingly eaten halal meat, but I assume I have unknowingly. I mean, at least half the food outlets here in downtown Kitchener are shawarma places now. I've never checked, but I'm assuming shawarma from a restaurant run by people from the Middle East would be halal. So there you go, the whole city has been converted.

And I remember going to an Egyptian restaurant when I was in university. That means I've been Muslim for most of my life now. Wow, I am really behind on my prayers. And I have to plan a trip to Mecca. They don't normally allow non-Muslims into the city, but apparently I just have to show them a receipt from the pita place down the street.

But it gets weirder when you realize that logically, this has to work with kosher products too. Lots of foods are kosher: Coca-Cola, for instance. So a huge portion of the world's population are unknowingly Jewish. And many people - myself included - are both Jewish and Muslim. So now we all have no choice but to get along with each other. Thanks, crazy Swedish politician.

Moving Architecture

Recently I read about the city of Kiruna, Sweden.  It's famous for starting the first ice hotel.  But now it's in the news because they may have to move the downtown.  See, the area is also known for mining, and that mining has destabilized the ground under the centre of the town.

It's unfortunate, because there are a few old buildings that will be lost.  But at the same time, a lot of cities would benefit from a second chance to build part of the city. You could skip trying to make an urban mall work, cut back on the condos or office blocks, or take a Mulligan on zoning that Planet Hollywood.

Or you could just keep it the same, but put it in a more appropriate place.  Screw with those suburbanites by dropping the downtown right next to the latest subdivision.  Kitchener-Waterloo could call a truce and build one new downtown on a neutral location.  Or we could move Cambridge up between KW and Guelph to make one big city.

So good luck to Kiruna.  It sounds like a pretty cool place. Coming up with the ice hotel is the sort of winter adaptation Canada could use, as I complained about earlier.  And I see on Wikipedia that it's even the home of Borje Salming.  What else...it even has its own spaceport?  That's it, I've found my new home!