Nimr
In the Shadows of the Towers
In the mid-1990s I had the pleasure of living in one of my favorite American cities, Minneapolis. One of the many things I did while I was there was working at a community center in the shadows of the Riverside Plaza Towers. The towering relics of failed housing programs of the 1970s still define the [...]
Top Ten Most Inconsequential Attempts to Support Palestine
14. Anything Said by Ahmadinejad13. Dialogue Groups12. Shoutout by MIA in one of her songs11. Free Palestine Facebook Group10. Ricky Martin Style Diplomacy 9. Boycotting Starbucks 8. Anything Done on Twitter….Ever 7. Keeping Fingers Crossed 6. Blogging 5. 1/2 Million Slingshots from Dubai 4. Calls for “Restraint” by American Presidents 3. Praying/Takbeer 2. Making Silly [...]
I Guess the Tent Ain’t Big Enough…
Over the years many analysts have linked the price of oil with the degree to which Gulf states seem willing to reform. When oil prices are high Gulf governments might give some lip-service to “reform”, but in general squeaky wheels are bought off and few significant changes are instituted. When oil prices dip, the fundamental [...]
Not so Radical
Although I am usually one to delight in morose irony, this story was a step too far even for me: Orchard Park police are investigating a particularly gruesome killing, the beheading of a woman, after her husband — an influential member of the local Muslim community — reported her death to police Thursday.…Muzzammil Hassan [the [...]
Bahrain, Welcome to the Club!
In light of the ongoing tensions between the Bahraini government and the disenfranchised Shia majority, the government has decided to take the highroad. And by highroad I mean, increasing internet censorship. It looks like Bahrain is working hard to join the 15 “enemies of the internet“. You know you are doin’ something right when you [...]
Land Art in Egypt
While the Land Art movement is usually associated with a cadre of conceptual artists in the United States, there are some interesting examples elsewhere. One of the coolest installations is in Egyptian, Desert Breath by Danae Stratou: The parameters that we had set for this project described a site specific work of such a scale [...]
Ain’t No Sleepin’ in Manama
There has been an uptick of Shia unrest in Bahrain the last few days after the government charged three prominent activists with promoting a coup. While the government seems to insist on beating the same old drum of “Shia disloyalty” (rather than admit the economic roots of the problem), the opposition groups seems to be [...]
Pirates vs. Ninjas…Arab Style
While the debate of Pirates vs. Ninjas rages on across the internets, there has been little discussion of the Arab dimension to the conflict. While many of history’s greatest pirates (and privateers) were Arab, obviously there are no Arab ninjas. I would contend that the famed Hashshashin could easily dispatch any “normal” ninja. Without furter [...]
Palestinians Are Not Alone
For all the talk of blogs being the new paradigm, I feel the Achilles’ heel of the platform is that it is inherently reactive. A very small percentage of what blogs do can be considered original content and they tend to simply comment on the news stories of the day (the touching posts of Mohammed [...]
I embassy what you did there….
The words “Venezuela” and “embassy” sure have been a fruitful producer of news stories lately. Try to keep up… 1) As has already been mentioned on Kabobfest, Venezuela has severed diplomatic ties with Israel. After the break-up there were rumors of a “friends with benefits” type situation, but this has been unsubstantiated as of yet. [...]
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