Archive for November, 2006

I haven’t yet watched Al-Jazeera’s English channel and I’m unlikely to for quite some time since it’s not being distributed in North America (or else the terrorists would win). But I got to watch the promo video on YouTube which I thought was very well put together. However it’s telling that everyone seems to be […]



Probably the most memorable TV character since that guy who did that thing that time.

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This is an interesting article on women in Jordan as seen through the eyes of an American women grassroots organization. It’s very telling that from a western perspective the hijab is seen as the biggest obstacle to women development in the Middle East. It’s also kind of ironic since in our part of the world […]



Nearly thirty years ago Cat Stevens left the music world at the height of his career. Now, forty years after his first album “Matthew & Son”, he brings us under a beautiful album cover, “An Other Cup” as Yusuf.
Now this is a completely bias review as I am a huge Yusuf fan. Though I must […]



Hours after the latest US veto in the UNSC on Israel’s Beit Hanoun massacre, Arab ministers met and the Arab league’s Chief Amr Moussa called the veto “incomprehensible”. After the usual lengthy meeting the ministers decided it was time to end the freeze on Palestinian aide in protest of the incomprehensible veto. Arab banks have […]



Street Fight is a political documentary that was nominated for an Academy Award back in 2005. It centers on a 2002 mayoral election and while one might be tempted to think that a political documentary about an election would only be interesting if it was a presidential race, one would have to think again. The […]



I was reading an article in Al-Ghad the other day and it mentioned that HM Queen Rania had published an article on her personal website on the anniversary of November 9th. I was intrigued because usually this kind of thing is done in the form of a letter and then released to the press, especially […]



The F Word

12Nov06

A lesson in Arabic grammar. Despite it’s simplicity, you have to admit, it’s pretty damn clever…

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I’m not much of a gamer (anymore) but with PS3 out all the gaming companies are running their creative ads for the Christmas season. The commercial for Gears of War (on XBOX 360) is very different and dare I say even metaphorical. Instead of the typical macho heavy metal music and scenes of guns blazing […]



Gaza: While the world looked elsewhere, another week of death and misery
By Donald Macintyre In Beit Hanoun
Published: 11 November 2006
Majdi Saad Athamneh couldn’t easily explain why he had come back after Friday prayers yesterday to the now empty, four-storey breeze-block building where it had all happened two days earlier. “I don’t know,” he said […]



In light of the recently approved Khutba law designed to facilitate and manage some of the aspects of what is preached in Jordanian mosques these days, I found this article by Ahmad Y. Majdoubeh in the Jordan Times very interesting. I do not have much to add to it other than to say I do […]



For some wacky reason I couldn’t wipe the huge grin off my face while reading Hal’s latest post on her 11 year old brother, Kareem aka the K-Man, who has recently started blogging. But I quickly became aware of the grin and wiped it away because I remember being 11 and I remember people wearing […]



The title of this post is the stage name for the British artist known as Sam Duckworth (kinda like Dashboard Confessional) and is a moniker famous in Essex traveler folk law, meaning ‘to live along the riverside’. I never heard of it but naturally I thought it was such a cool phrase that I had […]



Read my latest Global Voices round up of Palestinian & Pro-Palestinian blogs, and their reactions to the recent Beit Hanoun Massacre. The world has got to wake up!

I thought long and hard about an appropriate way to remember November 9th 2005 and to honor the fallen, the martyrs, the victims of a crime. Last year I was in a daze and couldn’t articulate any of my thoughts, even rage needed a visual depiction. At first I wanted to do something creative but […]



Four Months. 247 Palestinians dead. 155 of them, “official” civilians. 57 children. 996 wounded. 337 of them are children.
You know that the slaughter of Palestinians has reached new heights when Israel actually apologises. It’s a rare event and it usually comes at a very high cost. This was the price tag:

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