A few nights ago I was watching the popular Al-Jazeera ‘debate’ show, “The Opposite Direction” (as translated). On the show there was a debate about democracy, specifically with regards to the posed question of whether modern democracies suffered from a stranglehold by leaders/dictators. Bush and Blair were made examples of.
One of the panelists claimed that […]

For the past few months, West Ammanis have been in love with the show “Prison Break”, buying the 1JD ‘DVD’ copies in bulk. I never really liked the show or understood some Jordanians’ infatution with it, especially when we have so much prison drama right here in Jordan.
Amman - The director of Jordan’s Swaqa prison, […]

One-fifth of Americans can’t find their own country on a map? A Miss Teen USA contestant tells us why…

And to think that once upon a time, American educational institutions were hotbeds for political dissent. Suffice to say, students protesting the war on Iraq in the same manner their grandparent’s did in the 60’s, is, well, […]

I have to admit. I’m kind of semi-addicted to Al-Bawaba’s terrible writing. Also, I’m convinced that an old religious man with a long beard is in charge of the “Entertainment” section of this website. There’s no other explanation.
Boldly the camera of director Yahia Sa’ada followed Lebanese signer Haifa Wahbi in the swimming pool taking poses […]

This is interesting. After having written about shawarmanomics twice now, it seems the word is starting to catch on. An opinion piece by Yusuf Mansur in the Jordan Times this past week, was entitled “shawarmanomics”.
Hey, maybe blogging can affect the mainstream media.
I should start suing people who use ’shawarmanomics’; like Colbert with ‘truthiness’.
Google it.

[…]

nuff said…
AMMAN — Oil-parched Jordan said Thursday it was due to take delivery, within days, of much-delayed supplies of Iraqi crude oil at preferential rates under a year-old agreement with Baghdad.
Jordanian tanker trucks have headed to the border to await the crude that is expected to reach the Zarqa refinery in northeast Jordan […]

The Black Iris will be participating in Blog Action Day!
On October 15th - Blog Action Day, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind. In its inaugural year, Blog Action Day will be co-ordinating bloggers to tackle the issue of the environment.

Sign up!
Join the Facebook group.
Hat Tip: Subzero […]

Robert McKee: Nothing happens in the world? Are you out of your fucking mind? People are murdered every day. There’s genocide, war, corruption. Every fucking day, somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save someone else. Every fucking day, someone, somewhere makes a conscious decision to destroy someone else. People find love, people […]

So here’s how it played out: After weeks and weeks of rumors that fuel prices would be going up (rumors that usually prove to be true), the Prime Minister announced yesterday that no such thing would happen. Mind you, the rumors were in fact first started by the Jordanian media.
But in the same pitch, Deputy […]

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…
Nancy held a press conference a few hours before her concert at the Radisson Sass in Amman, Jordan. As she was talking about her participation in the Jerash Festival and everything was going as planned, an Israeli Journalist from ‘ Yadiot Ahranot’ newspaper disrupted and asked Ajram a […]

AMMAN, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Jordan’s King Abdullah issued a decree on Sunday dissolving parliament and told the government to prepare for multi-party polls later this year, officials said.
They said the decree dissolving the 110-member parliament, whose four-year term formally ended last April, and the call to prepare for elections, was a clear sign that […]

Having not put out a playlist for quite some time, I thought I’d quickly compile a longer (than usual) one. Consider it the ’summer edition’ playlist.

Bittersweet - Kanye West ft. John Mayer | It’s a song that I’ve waited a pretty long time to hear. Clips of it have been released as far back as […]

An interesting hour on a slow Friday afternoon.

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A few months back I wrote a rant about how high the prices of shawarma sandwiches are in Jordan. I feel it’s still a relevant topic because like I argued back then, shawarma sandwiches are part of a socio-economic hierarchy of food the most common Jordanian can afford. This is only one of the many […]

The poem is very touching.

It really dont happen everyday

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