I love Islam and cream soda

23 Questions ... There is an old saying often attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." Whether Lincoln actually said those words is beside the point. The lesson remains timeless. Far too often, Muslims enter discussions about Christianity armed with conviction but lacking preparation. Likewise, many Christians critique Islam without first understanding what Muslims actually believe. Instead of meaningful dialogue, both sides frequently speak past one another, repeating familiar slogans rather than engaging the evidence. This book was written to address that problem. It is not intended to mock Christianity. It is not intended to insult Christians. Nor is it intended to discourage respectful dialogue between people of different faiths. Rather, it is written from the conviction that every Muslim should understand both his own religion and the questions most commonly raised abou...

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Attacks on Michelle Obama aren't new. They tap into one of the oldest racist stereotypes in American history: the idea that Black women are somehow less feminine, less delicate, less worthy of protection, and somehow closer to men than other women. This wasn't just about insults. It had a purpose. For centuries, portraying Black women as unusually strong, masculine, or physically different helped justify exploiting their labor in fields, homes, factories, and plantations. If society could convince itself that Black women were built differently, then it became easier to deny them the care, compassion, and protection afforded to others. The echoes of that thinking remain with us today. Study after study has documented racial disparities in healthcare, including the persistent myth that Black people—and Black women in particular—experience less pain. Black mothers continue to face disproportionately high rates of maternal mortality and complications, regardless of income or educat...

  Let me say this plainly: I don’t visit my son. I had to check somebody on that recently while filling out paperwork. The form asked about “visitation” and who the “custodial parent” was. Nah. That might sound small to some people, but it’s not. That’s how the system quietly frames fathers before we even open our mouths. In Colorado, we don’t even use those terms anymore—at least not legally. There’s no “custody.” There’s no “visiting parent.” There is  parental responsibility . There is  parenting time . That’s intentional. That shift in language is supposed to reflect something real: both parents matter. But here’s the problem— the culture hasn’t caught up to the law . So what happens? You get professionals still using outdated language. You get systems still thinking in outdated roles. And worst of all—you get fathers who don’t push back. Let me be clear: If you don’t check the language, the language will check you. Calling it “visitation” makes you sound ...

 There’s something different about watching a man drop 33. Not just buckets. Not just highlights. Not just a career night that gets clipped up and replayed on ESPN. I’m talking about weight. Because when Terrence Shannon Jr. put up that 33-piece, he wasn’t just cooking defenders — he was cooking everything that tried to bury him before he ever got here. And I recognize that. Not from the cheap seats… but from the battlefield. --- We live in a time where an accusation can hit harder than any punch, any bullet, any prison sentence. A whisper turns into a headline. A headline turns into a narrative. And a narrative — once it gets legs — doesn’t care about truth. It cares about traction. Terrence Shannon Jr. got caught in that machine. Serious allegations. The kind that stain your name before you ever get to speak. The kind that make people look at you sideways, distance themselves, erase you before the facts even have a chance to breathe. But here’s what they don’t talk about enough: ...

By Taj Ashaheed There are moments in life when justice doesn’t arrive as a triumph. It arrives as a correction. A rebalancing. A full circle. --- My recent $240,000 settlement with the Colorado Department of Corrections might look, on paper, like a victory. But the truth is more complicated. It is the endpoint of a decade-long chain of decisions—some personal, many institutional—that reveal how easily systems meant to uphold justice can instead be bent to convenience, pressure, and protection of their own. To understand that settlement, you have to go back to 2014. --- That year, I pled guilty to harassment charges brought by my ex-wife, Dominique. The allegations were false. I intended to fight them. But fighting would have meant sitting in jail for months—possibly a year—waiting for trial. At the time, my teenage daughter was struggling deeply with my absence. So when prosecutors offered a deal—plead guilty, receive probation—I made a calculation. Not about guilt, but abo...