According to the latest Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International, Jordan now ranks 47 (2008), down rather significantly from last year’s position of 53. The Kingdom ranked 40 in 2006 and 37 in 2005 and 2004.
It should be noted that TI measures perceived corruption, employing a methodology that usually consists of surveys that poll experts, […]

Its first (of many-to-come) Arabic posts.

addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.black-iris.com%2F2008%2F09%2F23%2F7iber-goes-arabic%2F’;
addthis_title = ‘7iber+Goes+Arabic%21′;
addthis_pub = ”;

The story is as follows. A wife and mother tells her husband that she’s been sleeping around with other men in exchange for money and wants a divorce. So they go to a lawyer’s office and she writes down the names of all these men, for what reason, I cannot possibly comprehend. Then she’s taken […]

Who would’ve thought that blogs, social networking, SMS messages and the Internet in general, would be such a Ramadan-enabler, creating what is perhaps a Ramadani Web 2.0 subculture in the Arabian peninsula. Here’s a sampling of just some of the SMS messages that arrived to my cell phone since Ramadan began…
[translated from Arabic] The month […]

This is a quick message to all Jordanian bloggers and their readers who helped spread the word these past couple of days regarding the Action Committee’s Ramadan food drive. In all honesty, I do wish there were more contributions, but for something put together in ten days and dependent mainly on local, Jordanian, online activism, […]

Disclaimer: I want to emphasize that this post is an opinion and it is not one based on religious doctrine. It is based on political and social elements. I know it’s Ramadan, but I implore you to avoid quoting me the entire Quran just to prove a point or as a way of insisting that […]

“Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he’s president that he’ll take on, and I quote, ‘the old boys network in Washington.’ Now I’m not making this up. This is somebody who’s been in Congress for twenty-six years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign. And now he […]

And now, a brief interruption in the US Presidential campaign…
Nader talks to a parrot (whom I mistook to be his running mate) about media coverage, national health care and of course, dressing up as a panda and making love to another panda at the zoo.

addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.black-iris.com%2F2008%2F09%2F17%2Fbut-what-about-nader%2F’;
[…]