It’s kind of strange how now matter what kind of bad day you’re having, Amman’s traffic will always find a way, to make it worse.
Always.

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This was an interesting article in today’s Jordan Times outlining the Jordan-Iraqi border check procedures that include radiation scans:
The most common products containing radioactive elements that enter the border are agricultural goods, as years of warfare have contaminated Iraqi soil. Border officials had to deny entry to Iraqi trucks carrying dates, as their radiation levels […]

Natalia Antonova has the first review of the Jordanian feature film, Captain Abu Raed over at Arab Comment. Definitely worth checking out.
Nadim Sawalha, aka Captain Abu Raed, picked up the Best Actor award at the Dubai Film Festival. [ht: bakkouz & arabianmonkey]

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Here’s another round of my del.icio.us links for this past week. The fact that most of the links are Islamic-related is pure coincidence.
- A 16 year-old girl in Toronto is murdered by her father for refusing to wear the hijab and being “too westernized”. I don’t what to say about this story other than the […]

Snapped on my cell phone:

In light of a recent debate on the issue, I’ve started to wonder whether there is a fine line to be drawn between celebrating and commercializing. Can one be done without the other in a commercial atmosphere? Where do we draw the line?

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As we were driving around Amman the other night and the jolly Christmas lights and decorations glared from the balconies of apartments and doors of homes, my friend wondered out loud why there’s so much emphasis on Christmas but not on Eid Al-Adha. My initial response was not all that well thought out as I […]

This is pretty interesting news:
AMMAN - A new service allowing Jordanians to renew their passports through the country’s post offices is set to be operational at the beginning of next year.
Jordan Post Company (JPC) Director General Mansour Malhas told The Jordan Times that the service, to be launched following an agreement with the Civil Status […]

When it comes to working in Jordan, in a field that will often require a great deal of research, getting information is tough. As one management consultant told me recently, you have to “hustle”. The media sector is shackled to the wall with all the access to information laws designed to keep them off the […]

Facebook Envy n.
The feeling you get when you come across an old friend on Facebook and realize that their life turned out way better than yours.
[via jundi]

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Zaina, a colleague of mine at Jordan Business, wrote an interesting opinion piece in this month’s issue entitled “Breathing Spaces”. She pointed out the lack of public spaces in Amman is a troubling dilemma now more than ever, with the rapid urbanization of the city. So she proposed that instead of taxing owners of empty […]

So it’s been one year since I came back to live in Jordan and at the end of my first post on home soil, I promised a part two but it never transpired. Hence this post. However after actually writing it, and having it read like some sort of cliche retrospective, I pressed down on […]

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Called in last minute to attend a press conference at the amaneh (city hall), I was surprised to discover the Greater Amman Municipality had won the World Leadership award in the Town Planning category. Apparently, Amman is also Asia-Pacific city of the year. And while the city I love won, in a bit of surprising […]

Zaatar W Zeit is a restaurant that’s been around since 1999 in Beirut, and over the years has franchised to include Dubai, Kuwait and more recently, Amman. I’ve wanted to try the place out for the longest time now and tonight I finally got the chance. It’s been getting a lot of positive reviews and […]

The highlight of my weekend has definitely been getting to meet Amin Matalqa today at the Intercon, and talk about his movie Captain Abu Raed and what it’s like making a feature film in Jordan. First off, Amin is both smart and funny, in other words, he knows what he’s talking about when it comes […]

Here’s a collection of some of my delicious links I’ve been looking at these past few days:
- “Ahmadinejad” a film by Oliver Stone: Finally, a movie that will bring together America and Iran’s far right hatred of Oliver Stone.
- Young chimp beats college students: And these were Japanese college students!
- The 50 Richest Arabs: […]