It was with great horror that I managed to read through an op-ed piece in the Sunday edition of Al-Ghad newspaper, where regular columnist Hamadeh Faraneh attempted to initiate, what can best be described as, a “defense” of Dr. Bassem Awadallah. Sadly, this was done in the worst possible way. Referring to the recent passing [...]

Stocks in India also plunged Monday amid anxiety about the global financial system. Outside the Bombay Stock Exchange, an onlooker watched a screen showing the movement of stock prices. Photo: Gautam Singh/Associated Press The Rundown… There’s a lot to swallow, coming off a weekend that saw the nation’s housing-mortgage-credit crunch roll over some of the [...]

…like all great fatwas, it started with a phone call… RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) – Saudi Arabia’s top judiciary official has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast immoral content. The 79-year-old Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan said Thursday that satellite channels cause the “deviance of [...]

So it’s been the buzz of the Internet these past 24 hours or so: Tina Fey, the ex-head writer for Saturday Night Live returned to the show just to do a dead-on impersonation of Sarah Palin. It has got to be one of the best political impersonations ever done on SNL and ranks right up [...]

Ok. Well it’s only been four days since I posted this but four days in the virtual world is, like a Hollywood marriage, equal to four months. Usually the response is more enthusiastic but I blame myself for not having a more enthusiastic post title to begin with (hence the exclamations!), and also Ramadan for [...]

FP Passport has an interesting feature on what is best described as “graphical journalism”. The book, “After 9/11″, is essentially a graphical representation of the 9/11 Commission report. You can hear about the artists/authors on NPR. The reason I wanted to post this is mainly because I am always fascinated, if not infatuated, with how [...]

Before John Mayer ever released his first album, Room For Squares, I was a fan. And as he continued to grow as an artist I continued to grow as a fan. From his pop-rock, acoustic-driven, radio-friendly hits that made him famous, to the matured blues-rock, electric-driven creative sounds that have turned him into a modern-day [...]

“It happened so quickly that all his rights were flouted.” – KHADIJA RIYADI, of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights, on the arrest and conviction of Mohammed Erraji, who was sentenced to two years in prison for writing in a blog that King Mohammed VI’s charitable habits were encouraging a culture of dependency. [source] Not [...]