Melalui pendapatnya, Ibnu Taimiyah melarang kita pergi ke makam Rasulullah jika kita hanya bertujuan untuk memanjatkan doa dan mengharap terkabulnya doa di tempat tersebut atau menganggap bahwa berdoa di makam Rasulullah lebih mudah dikabulkan Allah.
Namun jika kita berziarah ke makam beliau, mengucapkan salam kepada penghuni tempat tersebut dan berdoa di sana, maka kita tidak dianggap berbuat syirik atau bid’ah.
Pendapat Ibnu Taimiyah itu terdapat dalam kitab lqtidha’ush Shirathil Mustaqim halaman 336, “Yang masuk dalam kategori ini adalah pergi ke kuburan untuk berdoa di sana atau untuk kuburan itu sendiri. Karena berdoa di kuburan atau di tempat-tempat lain terbagi menjadi dua macam;
Pertama, berdoa di kuburan karena kebetulan. Misalnya, seseorang berjalan sambil membaca doa, lalu kebetulan ia melewati sebuah kuburan. Di tempat tersebut, orang itu tidak berhenti berdoa. Contoh lain, seseorang memang sengaja berziarah ke kuburan, mengucapkan salam kepada penghuninya, dan berdoa kepada Allah memohon kesehatan dirinya dan si mayit. Berdoa di kuburan seperti dalam contoh- contoh tersebut tidak menjadi masalah.
Kedua, sengaja berdoa di makam Rasulullah disertai anggapan bahwa berdoa di tempat tersebut lebih memungkinkan untuk dikabulkan daripada di tempat-tempat yang lain. Berdoa seperti inilah yang dilarang keras. Hukumnya adalah haram mutiak.”
Pada halaman 339 di kitab tersebut, Ibnu Taimiyah menerangkan bahwa barangsiapa mengkaji kitab-kitab atsar dan tahu betul ihwal para ulama salaf, dia akan sa- dar bahwa mereka tidak pernah meminta pertolongan di kuburan itu. Mereka tidak mengunjungi kuburan semata- mata untuk berdoa di tempat tersebut.
Pendapat Syaikh Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab
Menurut Syaikh Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, sebagian ulama ada yang memperbolehkan bertawasul terhadap orang-orang shaleh, sebagian yang lagi hanya memperbolehkan bertawasul kepada Rasulullah SAW, namun mayoritas ulama melarang hal tersebut dan menganggapnya sebagai perbuatan makruh. Menurutnya, yang benar adalah apa yang disampaikan oleh mayoritas ulama.
Syaikh Muhammad bin Abdul Wahab menyatakan bahwa dirinya tidak mengingkari tawasul, sebab tidak ada pengingkaran terhadap hasil ijtihad. Beliau hanya menyatakan bahwa pengingkaran hanya wajib terhadap orang yang menganggap makhluk lebih agung dari Allah SWT.
“Kami mengingkari orang yang pergi ke kuburan dan merendahkan diri di hadapan makam Syaikh Abdul Qadiral- Jailani atau yang lainnya, lalu di tempat itu mereka memohon agar dijauhkan dari segala macam musibah, melepas duka cita, dan menggantungkan segala harapan. Perbuatan apa itu semua? Mengapa tidak memohon langsung kepada Allah SWT dengan tulus dan mumi?”
kehadiran tanaman hias di rumah anda tentu juga merupakan satu hal yang sangat penting dalam upaya untuk menciptakan hunian yang lebih indah, asri dan segar, sehingga perawatan tanaman telah menjadi satu faktor penting dalam menjaga keindahan, keasrian dan kesegaran lingkungan rumah anda. Dalam hal ini, kesabaran dan ketelatenan juga merupakan syarat wajib yang harus anda miliki jika ingin sukses dalam menjaga dan merawat tanaman koleksi anda. Pengetahuan mendasar mengenai cara merawat tanaman juga tidak kalah penting apalagi jika tanaman yang anda miliki termasuk tanaman dengan harga yang cukup mahal. Oleh karena itu, mari kita simak tips perawatan tanaman hias berikut.
Penyiraman
Air merupakan kebutuhan yang paling mendasar bagi semua mahluk hidup tidak terkecuali dengan tanaman hias di rumah anda. Oleh karena itu, penyiraman juga merupakan bagian yang terpenting dalam merawat tanaman. Agar proses penyiraman baik dan benar, anda juga perlu memperhatikan beberapa aspek seperti jenis tanaman, media tanam, dan cuaca. Jika tanaman anda berada di area taman rumah yang terbuka, mungkin ada tidak perlu menyiram tanaman anda ketika musim hujan. Namun, jika tanaman hias anda ditaman pada media pot dan ditempatkan di ruang beratap, anda pasti perlu menyiramnya dengan intensitas yang dapat disesuaikan bergantung pada kondisi cuaca. Pada musim kemarau, anda juga dapat menyiraminya dua kali sehari, sedangkan pada musim hujan, anda dapat menyirami tanaman hias anda satu kali sehari atau bahkan dua hari sekali saja.
Pemupukan
Tanpa anda sadari, nutrisi yang telah terkandung di dalam tanah dimana tanaman anda di tanam dapat berkurang dan mempengaruhi pertumbuhan tanaman hias anda. Pemupukan juga merupakan solusi penting untuk masalah ini agar nutrisi yang telah dibutuhkan oleh tanaman anda dapat terpenuhi. Konsultasikan jenis dan takaran pupuk yang anda perlukan untuk perawatan tanaman hias anda dengan ahli perawatan tanaman.
Pembersihan Gulma
Tamu tak diundang seringkali tumbuh dan dapat merusak keindahan tanaman hias anda. Pembersihan gulma yang tumbuh liar seperti rumput di sekitar tanaman hias anda juga merupakan salah satu kunci dalam merawat tanaman agar tetap terlihat indah.
Pemangkasan
Demi untuk menjaga keindahan dan kerapian tanaman hias anda, anda juga perlu melakukan pemangkasan sebagai langkah perawatan tanaman hias anda. Tentu saja pemangkasan hanya berlaku pada tanaman hias tertentu seperti mawar dan serut yang kita kenal memiliki daun yang cukup lebat dan menjadi kurang indah jika daun daun tersebut kita biarkan tumbuh secara liar. Gunakan gunting tanaman yang tajam untuk hasil yang maksimal.
Penggantian Pot
Jika tanaman hias anda tanam pada media pot, anda juga perlu mengganti pot yang lama dengan yang baru seiring dengan terus tumbuhnya tanaman anda. Proses ini juga akan terasa lebih mudah jika pot anda terbuat dari bahan yang mudah pecah seperti pot tanah liat. Anda hanya perlu memecahkan pot yang lama dan menggantikannya dengan pot yang baru. Selain menganti pot lama dengan yang baru, anda juga dapat memindahkan tanaman dari pot lama ke tanah sesuai dengan kebutuhan anda.
Demikian tips perawatan tanaman hias yang dapat anda ikuti di rumah. Sekali lagi, kunci sukses dalam merawat tanaman di rumah anda adalah kesabaran dan ketelatenan. Jika anda merasa kurang telaten dalam perawatan tanaman hias di rumah anda, anda mungkin perlu menyewa jasa perawatan tanaman agar investasi anda pada tanaman tanaman hias koleksi dapat benar-benar terjaga. Semoga tips ini bermanfaat.
Editor : Dian Sukmawati
> TIPS PERAWATAN TANAMAN HIAS
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LARANGAN HAJI DAN UMRAH
Jika seorang muslim melakukan ihram haji atau umrah maka haram atasnya sebelas perkara sampai ia keluar dari ihramnya (tahallul):
Mencabut rambut.
Menggunting kuku.
Memakai wangi-wangian.
Membunuh binatang buruan (darat, adapun binatang laut maka dibolehkan).
Mengenakan pakaian berjahit (bagi laki-laki dan tidak mengapa bagi wanita). Pakaian berjahit adalah pakaian yang membentuk badan, seperti baju, kaos, celana pendek, gamis, celana panjang, kaos tangan dan kaos kaki. Adapun sesuatu yang ada jahitannya tetapi tidak membentuk badan maka hal itu tidak membahayakan muhrim (orang yang sedang ihram), seperti sabuk, jam tangan, sepatu yang ada jahitan-nya dsb.
Menutupi kepala atau wajah dengan sesuatu yang menempel (bagi laki-laki), seperti peci, penutup kepala, surban, topi dan yang sejenisnya. Tetapi dibolehkan berteduh di bawah payung, di dalam kemah dan mobil. Juga dibolehkan membawa barang di atas kepala jika tidak dimaksudkan untuk menutupinya.
Memakai tutup muka dan kaos tangan (bagi wanita). Tetapi jika di depan laki-laki asing (bukan mahram) maka ia wajib menutupi wajah dan kedua tangannya, namun dengan selain tutup muka (cadar), misalnya dengan menurunkan kerudung ke wajah dan memasukkan tangan ke dalam baju kurung.
Melangsungkan pernikahan.
Bersetubuh.
Bercumbu (bermesraan) dengan syahwat.
Mengeluarkan mani dengan onani atau bercumbu.
Orang Yang Melakukan Hal-hal Yang Dilarang Memiliki Tiga Keadaan:
Ia melakukannya tanpa udzur (alasan), maka ia berdosa dan wajib membayar fidyah (tebusan).
Ia melakukannya untuk suatu keperluan, seperti memotong rambut karena sakit. Perbuatannya ter-sebut dibolehkan, tetapi ia wajib membayar fidyah.
Ia melakukannya dalam keadaan tidur, lupa, tidak tahu atau dipaksa. Dalam keadaan seperti itu ia tidak berdosa dan tidak wajib membayar fidyah.
Kompilasi dari berbagai sumber.
> LARANGAN HAJI DAN UMRAH
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Meet Mago, Former Heavyweight
GREENWICH, Conn. — Mago is in the bedroom. You can go in.
The big man lies on a hospital bed with his bare feet scraping its bottom rail. His head is propped on a scarlet pillow, the left temple dented, the right side paralyzed. His dark hair is kept just long enough to conceal the scars.
The occasional sounds he makes are understood only by his wife, but he still has that punctuating left hand. In slow motion, the fingers curl and close. A thumbs-up greeting.
Hello, Mago.
This is Magomed Abdusalamov, 34, also known as the Russian Tyson, also known as Mago. He is a former heavyweight boxer who scored four knockouts and 14 technical knockouts in his first 18 professional fights. He preferred to stand between rounds. Sitting conveyed weakness.
But Mago lost his 19th fight, his big chance, at the packed Theater at Madison Square Garden in November 2013. His 19th decision, and his last.
Now here he is, in a small bedroom in a working-class neighborhood in Greenwich, in a modest house his family rents cheap from a devoted friend. The air-pressure machine for his mattress hums like an expectant crowd.
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Mike Perez, left, and Magomed Abdusalamov during the fight in which Abdusalamov was injured.Credit Joe Camporeale/USA Today Sports, via Reuters
Today is like any other day, except for those days when he is hurried in crisis to the hospital. Every three hours during the night, his slight wife, Bakanay, 28, has risen to turn his 6-foot-3 body — 210 pounds of dead weight. It has to be done. Infections of the gaping bedsore above his tailbone have nearly killed him.
Then, with the help of a young caretaker, Baka has gotten two of their daughters off to elementary school and settled down the toddler. Yes, Mago and Baka are blessed with all girls, but they had also hoped for a son someday.
They feed Mago as they clean him; it’s easier that way. For breakfast, which comes with a side of crushed antiseizure pills, he likes oatmeal with a squirt of Hershey’s chocolate syrup. But even oatmeal must be puréed and fed to him by spoon.
He opens his mouth to indicate more, the way a baby does. But his paralysis has made everything a choking hazard. His water needs a stirring of powdered food thickener, and still he chokes — eh-eh-eh — as he tries to cough up what will not go down.
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Mago used to drink only water. No alcohol. Not even soda. A sip of juice would be as far as he dared. Now even water betrays him.
With the caretaker’s help, Baka uses a washcloth and soap to clean his body and shampoo his hair. How handsome still, she has thought. Sometimes, in the night, she leaves the bedroom to watch old videos, just to hear again his voice in the fullness of life. She cries, wipes her eyes and returns, feigning happiness. Mago must never see her sad.
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Abdusalamov's hand being massaged.Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times
When Baka finishes, Mago is cleanshaven and fresh down to his trimmed and filed toenails. “I want him to look good,” she says.
Theirs was an arranged Muslim marriage in Makhachkala, in the Russian republic of Dagestan. He was 23, she was 18 and their future hinged on boxing. Sometimes they would shadowbox in love, her David to his Goliath. You are so strong, he would tell her.
His father once told him he could either be a bandit or an athlete, but if he chose banditry, “I will kill you.” This paternal advice, Mago later told The Ventura County Reporter, “made it a very easy decision for me.”
Mago won against mediocre competition, in Moscow and Hollywood, Fla., in Las Vegas and Johnstown, Pa. He was knocked down only once, and even then, it surprised more than hurt. He scored a technical knockout in the next round.
It all led up to this: the undercard at the Garden, Mike Perez vs. Magomed Abdusalamov, 10 rounds, on HBO. A win, he believed, would improve his chances of taking on the heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, who sat in the crowd of 4,600 with his fiancée, the actress Hayden Panettiere, watching.
Wearing black-and-red trunks and a green mouth guard, Mago went to work. But in the first round, a hard forearm to his left cheek rocked him. At the bell, he returned to his corner, and this time, he sat down. “I think it’s broken,” he repeatedly said in Russian.
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Bakanay Abdusalamova, Abdusalamov's wife, and her injured husband and a masseur in the background.Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times
Maybe at that point, somebody — the referee, the ringside doctors, his handlers — should have stopped the fight, under a guiding principle: better one punch too early than one punch too late. But the bloody trade of blows continued into the seventh, eighth, ninth, a hand and orbital bone broken, his face transforming.
Meanwhile, in the family’s apartment in Miami, Baka forced herself to watch the broadcast. She could see it in his swollen eyes. Something was off.
After the final round, Perez raised his tattooed arms in victory, and Mago wandered off in a fog. He had taken 312 punches in about 40 minutes, for a purse of $40,000.
In the locker room, doctors sutured a cut above Mago’s left eye and tested his cognitive abilities. He did not do well. The ambulance that waits in expectation at every fight was not summoned by boxing officials.
Blood was pooling in Mago’s cranial cavity as he left the Garden. He vomited on the pavement while his handlers flagged a taxi to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital. There, doctors induced a coma and removed part of his skull to drain fluids and ease the swelling.
Then came the stroke.
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A championship belt belonging to Abdusalamov and a card from one of his daughters.Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times
It is lunchtime now, and the aroma of puréed beef and potatoes lingers. So do the questions.
How will Mago and Baka pay the $2 million in medical bills they owe? What if their friend can no longer offer them this home? Will they win their lawsuits against the five ringside doctors, the referee, and a New York State boxing inspector? What about Mago’s future care?
Most of all: Is this it?
A napkin rests on Mago’s chest. As another spoonful of mush approaches, he opens his mouth, half-swallows, chokes, and coughs until it clears. Eh-eh-eh. Sometimes he turns bluish, but Baka never shows fear. Always happy for Mago.
Some days he is wheeled out for physical therapy or speech therapy. Today, two massage therapists come to knead his half-limp body like a pair of skilled corner men.
Soon, Mago will doze. Then his three daughters, ages 2, 6 and 9, will descend upon him to talk of their day. Not long ago, the oldest lugged his championship belt to school for a proud show-and-tell moment. Her classmates were amazed at the weight of it.
Then, tonight, there will be more puréed food and pulverized medication, more coughing, and more tender care from his wife, before sleep comes.
Goodbye, Mago.
He half-smiles, raises his one good hand, and forms a fist.
Betsy von Furstenberg, Baroness and Versatile Actress, Dies at 83
Ms. von Furstenberg made her debut in the movies and on the Broadway stage in the early 1950s as a teenager and later reinvented herself as a television actress, writer and philanthropist.
Nepal’s Young Men, Lost to Migration, Then a Quake
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Many bodies prepared for cremation last week in Kathmandu were of young men from Gongabu, a common stopover for Nepali migrant workers headed overseas.Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times
KATHMANDU, Nepal — When the dense pillar of smoke from cremations by the Bagmati River was thinning late last week, the bodies were all coming from Gongabu, a common stopover for Nepali migrant workers headed overseas, and they were all of young men.
Hindu custom dictates that funeral pyres should be lighted by the oldest son of the deceased, but these men were too young to have sons, so they were burned by their brothers or fathers. Sukla Lal, a maize farmer, made a 14-hour journey by bus to retrieve the body of his 19-year-old son, who had been on his way to the Persian Gulf to work as a laborer.
“He wanted to live in the countryside, but he was compelled to leave by poverty,” Mr. Lal said, gazing ahead steadily as his son’s remains smoldered. “He told me, ‘You can live on your land, and I will come up with money, and we will have a happy family.’ ”
Weeks will pass before the authorities can give a complete accounting of who died in the April 25 earthquake, but it is already clear that Nepal cannot afford the losses. The countryside was largely stripped of its healthy young men even before the quake, as they migrated in great waves — 1,500 a day by some estimates — to work as laborers in India, Malaysia or one of the gulf nations, leaving many small communities populated only by elderly parents, women and children. Economists say that at some times of the year, one-quarter of Nepal’s population is working outside the country.
Children playing last week in Sandtown-Winchester, the Baltimore neighborhood where Freddie Gray was raised. One young resident called it “a tough community.”
Sid Tepper Dies at 96; Delivered ‘Red Roses for a Blue Lady’ and Other Songs
Mr. Tepper was not a musical child and had no formal training, but he grew up to write both lyrics and tunes, trading off duties with the other member of the team, Roy C. Bennett.
Andrew Lesnie, Cinematographer of ‘Lord of the Rings,’ Dies at 59
The magical quality Mr. Lesnie created in shooting the “Babe” films caught the eye of the director Peter Jackson, who chose him to film the fantasy epic.
The career criminals in genre novels don’t have money problems. If they need some, they just go out and steal it. But such financial transactions can backfire, which is what happened back in 2004 when the Texas gang in Michael
Gene Fullmer, a Brawling Middleweight Champion, Dies at 83
Fullmer, who reigned when fight clubs abounded and Friday night fights were a television staple, was known for his title bouts with Sugar Ray Robinson and Carmen Basilio.
With Iran Talks, a Tangled Path to Ending Syria’s War
UNITED NATIONS — Wearing pinstripes and a pince-nez, Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations envoy for Syria, arrived at the Security Council one Tuesday afternoon in February and announced that President Bashar al-Assad had agreed to halt airstrikes over Aleppo. Would the rebels, Mr. de Mistura suggested, agree to halt their shelling?
What he did not announce, but everyone knew by then, was that the Assad government had begun a military offensive to encircle opposition-held enclaves in Aleppo and that fierce fighting was underway. It would take only a few days for rebel leaders, having pushed back Syrian government forces, to outright reject Mr. de Mistura’s proposed freeze in the fighting, dooming the latest diplomatic overture on Syria.
Diplomacy is often about appearing to be doing something until the time is ripe for a deal to be done.
Now, with Mr. Assad’s forces having suffered a string of losses on the battlefield and the United States reaching at least a partial rapprochement with Mr. Assad’s main backer, Iran, Mr. de Mistura is changing course. Starting Monday, he is set to hold a series of closed talks in Geneva with the warring sides and their main supporters. Iran will be among them.
In an interview at United Nations headquarters last week, Mr. de Mistura hinted that the changing circumstances, both military and diplomatic, may have prompted various backers of the war to question how much longer the bloodshed could go on.
“Will that have an impact in accelerating the willingness for a political solution? We need to test it,” he said. “The Geneva consultations may be a good umbrella for testing that. It’s an occasion for asking everyone, including the government, if there is any new way that they are looking at a political solution, as they too claim they want.”
He said he would have a better assessment at the end of June, when he expects to wrap up his consultations. That coincides with the deadline for a final agreement in the Iran nuclear talks.
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Whether a nuclear deal with Iran will pave the way for a new opening on peace talks in Syria remains to be seen. Increasingly, though, world leaders are explicitly linking the two, with the European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, suggesting last week that a nuclear agreement could spur Tehran to play “a major but positive role in Syria.”
It could hardly come soon enough. Now in its fifth year, the Syrian war has claimed 220,000 lives, prompted an exodus of more than three million refugees and unleashed jihadist groups across the region. “This conflict is producing a question mark in many — where is it leading and whether this can be sustained,” Mr. de Mistura said.
Part Italian, part Swedish, Mr. de Mistura has worked with the United Nations for more than 40 years, but he is more widely known for his dapper style than for any diplomatic coups. Syria is by far the toughest assignment of his career — indeed, two of the organization’s most seasoned diplomats, Lakhdar Brahimi and Kofi Annan, tried to do the job and gave up — and critics have wondered aloud whether Mr. de Mistura is up to the task.
He served as a United Nations envoy in Afghanistan and Iraq, and before that in Lebanon, where a former minister recalled, with some scorn, that he spent many hours sunbathing at a private club in the hills above Beirut. Those who know him say he has a taste for fine suits and can sometimes speak too soon and too much, just as they point to his diplomatic missteps and hyperbole.
They cite, for instance, a news conference in October, when he raised the specter of Srebrenica, where thousands of Muslims were massacred in 1995 during the Balkans war, in warning that the Syrian border town of Kobani could fall to the Islamic State. In February, he was photographed at a party in Damascus, the Syrian capital, celebrating the anniversary of the Iranian revolution just as Syrian forces, aided by Iran, were pummeling rebel-held suburbs of Damascus; critics seized on that as evidence of his coziness with the government.
Mouin Rabbani, who served briefly as the head of Mr. de Mistura’s political affairs unit and has since emerged as one of his most outspoken critics, said Mr. de Mistura did not have the background necessary for the job. “This isn’t someone well known for his political vision or political imagination, and his closest confidants lack the requisite knowledge and experience,” Mr. Rabbani said.
As a deputy foreign minister in the Italian government, Mr. de Mistura was tasked in 2012 with freeing two Italian marines detained in India for shooting at Indian fishermen. He made 19 trips to India, to little effect. One marine was allowed to return to Italy for medical reasons; the other remains in India.
He said he initially turned down the Syria job when the United Nations secretary general approached him last August, only to change his mind the next day, after a sleepless, guilt-ridden night.
Mr. de Mistura compared his role in Syria to that of a doctor faced with a terminally ill patient. His goal in brokering a freeze in the fighting, he said, was to alleviate suffering. He settled on Aleppo as the location for its “fame,” he said, a decision that some questioned, considering that Aleppo was far trickier than the many other lesser-known towns where activists had negotiated temporary local cease-fires.
“Everybody, at least in Europe, are very familiar with the value of Aleppo,” Mr. de Mistura said. “So I was using that as an icebreaker.”
The cease-fire negotiations, to which he had devoted six months, fell apart quickly because of the government’s military offensive in Aleppo the very day of his announcement at the Security Council. Privately, United Nations diplomats said Mr. de Mistura had been manipulated. To this, Mr. de Mistura said only that he was “disappointed and concerned.”
Tarek Fares, a former rebel fighter, said after a recent visit to Aleppo that no Syrian would admit publicly to supporting Mr. de Mistura’s cease-fire proposal. “If anyone said they went to a de Mistura meeting in Gaziantep, they would be arrested,” is how he put it, referring to the Turkish city where negotiations between the two sides were held.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon remains staunchly behind Mr. de Mistura’s efforts. His defenders point out that he is at the center of one of the world’s toughest diplomatic problems, charged with mediating a conflict in which two of the world’s most powerful nations — Russia, which supports Mr. Assad, and the United States, which has called for his ouster — remain deadlocked.
R. Nicholas Burns, a former State Department official who now teaches at Harvard, credited Mr. de Mistura for trying to negotiate a cease-fire even when the chances of success were exceedingly small — and the chances of a political deal even smaller. For his efforts to work, Professor Burns argued, the world powers will first have to come to an agreement of their own.
“He needs the help of outside powers,” he said. “It starts with backers of Assad. That’s Russia and Iran. De Mistura is there, waiting.”
Rhapsody, a Lofty Literary Journal, Perused at 39,000 Feet
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United’s first-class and business fliers get Rhapsody, its high-minded in-flight magazine, seen here at its office in Brooklyn.Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
Last summer at a writers’ workshop in Oregon, the novelists Anthony Doerr, Karen Russell and Elissa Schappell were chatting over cocktails when they realized they had all published work in the same magazine. It wasn’t one of the usual literary outlets, like Tin House, The Paris Review or The New Yorker. It was Rhapsody, an in-flight magazine for United Airlines.
It seemed like a weird coincidence. Then again, considering Rhapsody’s growing roster of A-list fiction writers, maybe not. Since its first issue hit plane cabins a year and a half ago, Rhapsody has published original works by literary stars like Joyce Carol Oates, Rick Moody, Amy Bloom, Emma Straub and Mr. Doerr, who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction two weeks ago.
As airlines try to distinguish their high-end service with luxuries like private sleeping chambers, showers, butler service and meals from five-star chefs, United Airlines is offering a loftier, more cerebral amenity to its first-class and business-class passengers: elegant prose by prominent novelists. There are no airport maps or disheartening lists of in-flight meal and entertainment options in Rhapsody. Instead, the magazine has published ruminative first-person travel accounts, cultural dispatches and probing essays about flight by more than 30 literary fiction writers.
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Sean Manning, executive editor of Rhapsody, which publishes works by the likes of Joyce Carol Oates, Amy Bloom and Anthony Doerr, who won a Pulitzer Prize.Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
An airline might seem like an odd literary patron. But as publishers and writers look for new ways to reach readers in a shaky retail climate, many have formed corporate alliances with transit companies, including American Airlines, JetBlue and Amtrak, that provide a captive audience.
Mark Krolick, United Airlines’ managing director of marketing and product development, said the quality of the writing in Rhapsody brings a patina of sophistication to its first-class service, along with other opulent touches like mood lighting, soft music and a branded scent.
“The high-end leisure or business-class traveler has higher expectations, even in the entertainment we provide,” he said.
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Some of Rhapsody’s contributing writers say they were lured by the promise of free airfare and luxury accommodations provided by United, as well as exposure to an elite audience of some two million first-class and business-class travelers.
“It’s not your normal Park Slope Community Bookstore types who read Rhapsody,” Mr. Moody, author of the 1994 novel “The Ice Storm,” who wrote an introspective, philosophical piece about traveling to the Aran Islands of Ireland for Rhapsody, said in an email. “I’m not sure I myself am in that Rhapsody demographic, but I would like them to buy my books one day.”
In addition to offering travel perks, the magazine pays well and gives writers freedom, within reason, to choose their subject matter and write with style. Certain genres of flight stories are off limits, naturally: no plane crashes or woeful tales of lost luggage or rude flight attendants, and nothing too risqué.
“We’re not going to have someone write about joining the mile-high club,” said Jordan Heller, the editor in chief of Rhapsody. “Despite those restrictions, we’ve managed to come up with a lot of high-minded literary content.”
Guiding writers toward the right idea occasionally requires some gentle prodding. When Rhapsody’s executive editor asked Ms. Russell to contribute an essay about a memorable flight experience, she first pitched a story about the time she was chaperoning a group of teenagers on a trip to Europe, and their delayed plane sat at the airport in New York for several hours while other passengers got progressively drunker.
“He pointed out that disaster flights are not what people want to read about when they’re in transit, and very diplomatically suggested that maybe people want to read something that casts air travel in a more positive light,” said Ms. Russell, whose novel “Swamplandia!” was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize.
She turned in a nostalgia-tinged essay about her first flight on a trip to Disney World when she was 6. “The Magic Kingdom was an anticlimax,” she wrote. “What ride could compare to that first flight?”
Ms. Oates also wrote about her first flight, in a tiny yellow propeller plane piloted by her father. The novelist Joyce Maynard told of the constant disappointment of never seeing her books in airport bookstores and the thrill of finally spotting a fellow plane passenger reading her novel “Labor Day.” Emily St. John Mandel, who was a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction last year, wrote about agonizing over which books to bring on a long flight.
“There’s nobody that’s looked down their noses at us as an in-flight magazine,” said Sean Manning, the magazine’s executive editor. “As big as these people are in the literary world, there’s still this untapped audience for them of luxury travelers.”
United is one of a handful of companies showcasing work by literary writers as a way to elevate their brands and engage customers. Chipotle has printed original work from writers like Toni Morrison, Jeffrey Eugenides and Barbara Kingsolver on its disposable cups and paper bags. The eyeglass company Warby Parker hosts parties for authors and sells books from 14 independent publishers in its stores.
JetBlue offers around 40 e-books from HarperCollins and Penguin Random House on its free wireless network, allowing passengers to read free samples and buy and download books. JetBlue will start offering 11 digital titles from Simon & Schuster soon. Amtrak recently forged an alliance with Penguin Random House to provide free digital samples from 28 popular titles, which passengers can buy and download over Amtrak’s admittedly spotty wireless service.
Amtrak is becoming an incubator for literary talent in its own right. Last year, it started a residency program, offering writers a free long-distance train trip and complimentary food. More than 16,000 writers applied and 24 made the cut.
Like Amtrak, Rhapsody has found that writers are eager to get onboard. On a rainy spring afternoon, Rhapsody’s editorial staff sat around a conference table discussing the June issue, which will feature an essay by the novelist Hannah Pittard and an unpublished short story by the late Elmore Leonard.
“Do you have that photo of Elmore Leonard? Can I see it?” Mr. Heller, the editor in chief, asked Rhapsody’s design director, Christos Hannides. Mr. Hannides slid it across the table and noted that they also had a photograph of cowboy spurs. “It’s very simple; it won’t take away from the literature,” he said.
Rhapsody’s office, an open space with exposed pipes and a vaulted brick ceiling, sits in Dumbo at the epicenter of literary Brooklyn, in the same converted tea warehouse as the literary journal N+1 and the digital publisher Atavist. Two of the magazine’s seven staff members hold graduate degrees in creative writing. Mr. Manning, the executive editor, has published a memoir and edited five literary anthologies.
Mr. Manning said Rhapsody was conceived from the start as a place for literary novelists to write with voice and style, and nobody had been put off that their work would live in plane cabins and airport lounges.
Still, some contributors say they wish the magazine were more widely circulated.
“I would love it if I could read it,” said Ms. Schappell, a Brooklyn-based novelist who wrote a feature story for Rhapsody’s inaugural issue. “But I never fly first class.”
Dean Skelos, Albany Senate Leader, Aided Son at All Costs, U.S. Says
Over the last five years or so, it seemed there was little that Dean G. Skelos, the majority leader of the New York Senate, would not do for his son.
He pressed a powerful real estate executive to provide commissions to his son, a 32-year-old title insurance salesman, according to a federal criminal complaint. He helped get him a job at an environmental company and employed his influence to help the company get government work. He used his office to push natural gas drilling regulations that would have increased his son’s commissions.
He even tried to direct part of a $5.4 billion state budget windfall to fund government contracts that the company was seeking. And when the company was close to securing a storm-water contract from Nassau County, the senator, through an intermediary, pressured the company to pay his son more — or risk having the senator subvert the bid.
The criminal complaint, unsealed on Monday, lays out corruption charges against Senator Skelos and his son, Adam B. Skelos, the latest scandal to seize Albany, and potentially alter its power structure.
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Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, discussed the case involving Dean G. Skelos and his son, Adam.Credit Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
The repeated and diverse efforts by Senator Skelos, a Long Island Republican, to use what prosecutors said was his political influence to find work, or at least income, for his son could send both men to federal prison. If they are convicted of all six charges against them, they face up to 20 years in prison for each of four of the six counts and up to 10 years for the remaining two.
Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, of Long Island, who serves as chairman of the Republican conference, emerged from a closed-door meeting Monday night to say that conference members agreed that Mr. Skelos should be benefited the “presumption of innocence,” and would stay in his leadership role.
“The leader has indicated he would like to remain as leader,” said Mr. LaValle, “and he has the support of the conference.” The case against Mr. Skelos and his son grew out of a broader inquiry into political corruption by the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, that has already changed the face of the state capital. It is based in part, according to the six-count complaint, on conversations secretly recorded by one of two cooperating witnesses, and wiretaps on the cellphones of the senator and his son. Those recordings revealed that both men were concerned about electronic surveillance, and illustrated the son’s unsuccessful efforts to thwart it.
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Adam Skelos took to using a “burner” phone, the complaint says, and told his father he wanted them to speak through a FaceTime video call in an apparent effort to avoid detection. They also used coded language at times.
At one point, Adam Skelos was recorded telling a Senate staff member of his frustration in not being able to speak openly to his father on the phone, noting that he could not “just send smoke signals or a little pigeon” carrying a message.
The 43-page complaint, sworn out by Paul M. Takla, a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, outlines a five-year scheme to “monetize” the senator’s official position; it also lays bare the extent to which a father sought to use his position to help his son.
The charges accuse the two men of extorting payments through a real estate developer, Glenwood Management, based on Long Island, and the environmental company, AbTech Industries, in Scottsdale, Ariz., with the expectation that the money paid to Adam Skelos — nearly $220,000 in total — would influence his father’s actions.
Glenwood, one of the state’s most prolific campaign donors, had ties to AbTech through investments in the environmental firm’s parent company by Glenwood’s founding family and a senior executive.
The accusations in the complaint portray Senator Skelos as a man who, when it came to his son, was not shy about twisting arms, even in situations that might give other arm-twisters pause.
Seeking to help his son, Senator Skelos turned to the executive at Glenwood, which develops rental apartments in New York City and has much at stake when it comes to real estate legislation in Albany. The senator urged him to direct business to his son, who sold title insurance.
After much prodding, the executive, Charles C. Dorego, engineered a $20,000 payment to Adam Skelos from a title insurance company even though he did no work for the money. But far more lucrative was a consultant position that Mr. Dorego arranged for Adam Skelos at AbTech, which seeks government contracts to treat storm water. (Mr. Dorego is not identified by name in the complaint, but referred to only as CW-1, for Cooperating Witness 1.)
Senator Skelos appeared to take an active interest in his son’s new line of work. Adam Skelos sent him several drafts of his consulting agreement with AbTech, the complaint says, as well as the final deal that was struck.
“Mazel tov,” his father replied.
Senator Skelos sent relevant news articles to his son, including one about a sewage leak near Albany. When AbTech wanted to seek government contracts after Hurricane Sandy, the senator got on a conference call with his son and an AbTech executive, Bjornulf White, and offered advice. (Like Mr. Dorego, Mr. White is not named in the complaint, but referred to as CW-2.)
The assistance paid off: With the senator’s help, AbTech secured a contract worth up to $12 million from Nassau County, a big break for a struggling small business.
But the money was slow to materialize. The senator expressed impatience with county officials.
Adam Skelos, in a phone call with Mr. White in late December, suggested that his father would seek to punish the county. “I tell you this, the state is not going to do a [expletive] thing for the county,” he said.
Three days later, Senator Skelos pressed his case with the Nassau County executive, Edward P. Mangano, a fellow Republican. “Somebody feels like they’re just getting jerked around the last two years,” the senator said, referring to his son in what the complaint described as “coded language.”
The next day, the senator pursued the matter, as he and Mr. Mangano attended a wake for a slain New York City police officer. Senator Skelos then reassured his son, who called him while he was still at the wake. “All claims that are in will be taken care of,” the senator said.
AbTech’s fortunes appeared to weigh on his son. At one point in January, Adam Skelos told his father that if the company did not succeed, he would “lose the ability to pay for things.”
Making matters worse, in recent months, Senator Skelos and his son appeared to grow wary about who was watching them. In addition to making calls on the burner phone, Adam Skelos said he used the FaceTime video calling “because that doesn’t show up on the phone bill,” as he told Mr. White.
In late February, Adam Skelos arranged a pair of meetings between Mr. White and state senators; AbTech needed to win state legislation that would allow its contract to move beyond its initial stages. But Senator Skelos deemed the plan too risky and caused one of the meetings to be canceled.
In another recorded call, Adam Skelos, promising to be “very, very vague” on the phone, urged his father to allow the meeting. The senator offered a warning. “Right now we are in dangerous times, Adam,” he told him.
A month later, in another phone call that was recorded by the authorities, Adam Skelos complained that his father could not give him “real advice” about AbTech while the two men were speaking over the telephone.
“You can’t talk normally,” he told his father, “because it’s like [expletive] Preet Bharara is listening to every [expletive] phone call. It’s just [expletive] frustrating.”
