Several days after international media reports, vis a vis CIA officials, indicating Humam Balawi, a Jordanian, as being the bomber who killed seven CIA agents and his Jordanian handler, Sharif Ali, a video of him has surfaced on Al Jazeera. The video is very short, but in it, Balawi, in traditional suicide bomber fashion, sends [...]

One of my new year’s resolutions is to read a lot more. The problem is that I tend to make this resolution every year but life tends to get in the way. So this year I figured my blog could come in handy by providing me the space to review what I read; the good, [...]

REUTERS PHOTO: A Jordanian demonstrator steps on a picture of Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak during a protest near the Egyptian embassy in Amman January 6, 2010. The demonstrators were protesting against Wednesday’s clash at the port city of Arish, 40km (25 miles) from Egypt’s border with Gaza, between Egyptian security forces and members of a [...]

Getty Images It has undeniably been the talk of the town here in Amman, to say nothing of the local virtual spheres; an interesting contrast to the local mainstream media that has remained relatively hush-hush about the death of Sharif Ali bin Zaid. Initial reports suggested that eight people had died in a suicide attack, [...]

Technically, top lists of the past year get something like a 10-day deadline in to the new year before the law says you just can’t publish them anymore. So I thought I’d sneak this one in under the radar while time still allows me. These are not necessarily the best albums of 2009, but they [...]

One of my favorite classical books has always been Alice in Wonderland – a story with enough allusions and alogeries to keep you thinking for years. Today, I am reminded of an interesting quote from the tale where Alice meets Cheshire. `Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether [...]