Yesterday was the opening of gallery showcasing the work of the very young Palestinian cartoonist, Mohammad Sabaaneh, at the Balad Theater. His caricatures are pretty interesting, and some were even an eye-opener for me. One of the main differences in his work from all others, was the way he attempts to capture the Palestinian street. […]

This post. Is carefully worded. Because words. Still matter.
They put you in a small room. Very small. No cell phone. No keys. Just walls. They send a soldier every now and then. He pretends to be your friend. He asks stupid questions. You give him stupid answers. They wait for you to get […]

In the US, it really doesn’t feel like fall until network TV stations begin to air their fall season line up, and all our favorite shows come back on the air. That’s when you know fall has really begun. Similarly, in the Middle East, we know it’s summer when conflicts in the region begin to […]

Who says artists don’t do political messages? Or maybe it was just boredom. Check out the series on flickr. Here are some favorites:

Emo Lincoln

“300″ Jackson

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I don’t know how true this is…
Jordanian authorities have banned all events marking the “Nakba,” or Catastrophe, as Arabs refer to the creation of Israel 60 years ago. Several pro-Palestinian groups and Jordanian opposition parties has been planning to hold a rally in Amman on Friday.
But the authorities informed the organizers of the decision to […]

Last night, three Jordanian short films were presented at the Balad Theater. Butterfly by Mohammad Hushki is a tale of a testosterone-ridden male and this two friends, who’s out to take his revenge on a cabdriver who molested his girlfriend. Fragile by Ahmad Amin brings together a day in the lives of five different people, […]

AMMAN (AFP) — A teenage woman was jailed for 15 years in Jordan on Wednesday for murdering her parents and two brothers by poisoning their orange juice, a court official said.
Hana al-Shamali, 19, was sentenced to prison and hard labour for the February killings in the city of Irbid, north of the Jordanian capital Amman, […]

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Nearly 45 years after his creation, Iron Man has come to the silver screen. I went to the early screening at Grand Cinema last night in eager anticipation for the first blockbuster movie of the season and thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed. The story begins as all good first superhero movies do, with the origins. Tony […]

I’m in. Are you?

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Jordanian security arrested three activists for distributing leaflets calling for a general strike to protest food prices and government policies that fail to help the poor, activists said on Sunday.
Khalid Kalaldeh, head of the leftist “Social Jordanian Movement”, told Reuters the arrests took place on Saturday when members of his small group handed out leaflets […]

15,000
22,000

…and that’s all I have to say about that

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In the past few months, there has been a campaign, if not a movement, to combat speeding cars and traffic accidents. From the Hikmet-related campaigns of mid-January, to the nation-wide campaign following the Jerash-road bus crash, to the introduction of tough traffic laws and their subsequent legislative rejection a few weeks later. Lately, we’ve seen […]

I know it might feel a bit redundant after the past few days of picking on the subject extensively, but today there seems to be an overkill of news on our favorite topic.
First, a new study.
Around 46 per cent of the Kingdom’s journalists believe that the status of press freedoms did not change last year, […]

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. - Walt Whitman
Well today is World Press Freedom Day, and there’s not much for me to say that hasn’t already been said on the Black Iris before. So I will spare everyone the […]

…flow my tears, the policeman said…
A study released on Thursday revealed that though many Jordanians support media freedoms, a majority support government restrictions when it comes to destabilising issues.
In the study, performed by WorldPublicOpinion.org and supported and coordinated by the Centre for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, 78 per cent of respondents agreed […]