Muhammad Cohen

Category: UbudWritersFest

  • #UWRF19: Richard Fidler uncovers Viking women

    At the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali, Australian popular historian Richard Fidler told tales from Constantinople, the subject of his best selling Ghost Empire, and Iceland, chronicled in Saga Land with his friend Kari Gislason. Our vision of Norse legend – and that of Marvel Comics movie makers – traces to Iceland,

    “In the Viking concept of honor, honor is not something that can be earned. It’s something you must take from someone else. It’s like currency, there’s only so much to go around,” Fidler explained.

    “A woman’s honor is as important as a man’s, and she will go to any length to preserve it, including killing the men she loves.” Who knew there were so many Viking women among us?

    Totally globalized native New Yorker and former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen is a blogger for Forbes, editor at large for Inside Asian Gaming and author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set in his adopted hometown during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie. See his bio, online archive and more at www.muhammadcohen.com; follow him on Facebook and Twitter @MuhammadCohen.

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  • #UWRF19: Richard Fidler uncovers Viking women

    At the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali, Australian popular historian Richard Fidler told tales from Constantinople, the subject of his best selling Ghost Empire, and Iceland, chronicled in Saga Land with his friend Kari Gislason. Our vision of Norse legend – and that of Marvel Comics movie makers – traces to Iceland,

    “In the Viking concept of honor, honor is not something that can be earned. It’s something you must take from someone else. It’s like currency, there’s only so much to go around,” Fidler explained.

    “A woman’s honor is as important as a man’s, and she will go to any length to preserve it, including killing the men she loves.” Who knew there were so many Viking women among us?

    Totally globalized native New Yorker and former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen is a blogger for Forbes, editor at large for Inside Asian Gaming and author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set in his adopted hometown during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie. See his bio, online archive and more at www.muhammadcohen.com; follow him on Facebook and Twitter @MuhammadCohen.

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  • #UWRF19: Reza Aslan says we’re born religious

    At the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali, God: A Human History author Reza Alsan declared, “The religious impulse dates back to before our species exists.” Evidence of organized religion goes back 14,000 years, but evidence of religious impulses, such as cave paintings that depict fantasy beings rather than actual prey, burials and idols can be found as far as 350,000 years back, some 200,000 years before the rise of homo sapiens.

    Aslan believes that evidence points to an innate belief in a higher power. “What is without doubt is that this is a universal impulse,” the Iranian-American religious scholar asserts, one that’s hardwired into all of us.

    Of course, there’s an alternate explanation: beings that don’t hold this belief in a higher power get struck down before birth by the terrible swift sword of the Almighty.

    Totally globalized native New Yorker and former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen is editor at large for Inside Asian Gaming and author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set in his adopted hometown during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie. See his bio, online archive and more at www.muhammadcohen.com; follow him on Facebook and Twitter @MuhammadCohen.

  • #UWRF19: Reza Aslan says we’re born religious

    At the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali, God: A Human History author Reza Alsan declared, “The religious impulse dates back to before our species exists.” Evidence of organized religion goes back 14,000 years, but evidence of religious impulses, such as cave paintings that depict fantasy beings rather than actual prey, burials and idols can be found as far as 350,000 years back, some 200,000 years before the rise of homo sapiens.

    Aslan believes that evidence points to an innate belief in a higher power. “What is without doubt is that this is a universal impulse,” the Iranian-American religious scholar asserts, one that’s hardwired into all of us.

    Of course, there’s an alternate explanation: beings that don’t hold this belief in a higher power get struck down before birth by the terrible swift sword of the Almighty.

    Totally globalized native New Yorker and former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen is editor at large for Inside Asian Gaming and author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set in his adopted hometown during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie. See his bio, online archive and more at www.muhammadcohen.com; follow him on Facebook and Twitter @MuhammadCohen.

  • #UWRF19: Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler gets the bomb

    A great charm of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali is being able to rub elbows with the incredibly talented attendees on and off stage. At a panel on the Karma of Comedy with James Roque, Lindsay Wong, Rhik Samadder and Maeve Marsden, I found myself sitting next to Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler.

    During the session, Roque, an ethnic Filipino who grew up in New Zealand, referred repeatedly to his mother soothing herself with a bath bomb. Wheeler, a living legend of traveler who has made the world accessible for millions of people, turned to me and asked, “What’s a bath bomb?”

    Totally globalized native New Yorker and former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen is editor at large for Inside Asian Gaming and author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set in his adopted hometown during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie. See his bio, online archive and more at www.muhammadcohen.com; follow him on Facebook and Twitter @MuhammadCohen.

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