Last month, 7iber launched an initiative to collect citizen-generated photographs that capture Jordan from behind their lens. Throughout June we received an endless amount of pictures with the objective of picking the best 10 and printing them as postcards to be sold in the marketplace, with any profits going towards future community projects.
Then we […]

Jordanian men play chess in their neighborhood in Amman. AP PHOTO

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While the Internet and mainstream media has turned its attention to Iran in the past few weeks, it’s almost difficult to see the country in non-political terms. In the name of comedy, The Daily Show sent Jason Jones to Iran to do a series entitled “Behind The Veil”. So far, it’s been a hilarious window […]

Well tonight should be an interesting night. Jordanian bloggers via 7iber, have teamed up with some amazing artists to put on a never-before-untypical-unprecedented show tonight at the Al-Hussein Cultural Center in Ras Il-Ein. It’s a show that makes an attempt of merging the online and offline worlds in Jordan - bringing an online conversation to […]

Here’s the thing. Back in December, the world pretty much laughed and cheered as Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at former US President, George W. Bush. And since then, shoe-throwing as a form of political protest seems to have come back in to fashion. It’s being referred to as “shoeing”.
According to it’s Wiki […]

What words coming to life look like…

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“The key to a healthy society, is a thriving community of storytellers…storytelling is a commodity, it’s a staple, there is no life without stories.” - Franco Sacchi, Italian filmmaker.
Check out his TED Talk, it really is inspiring. Who knew that Nigeria had the third largest film industry in the world; Nollywood? And it seems […]

One social element in Jordan has always been the turning down of music whenever the athan (call) for prayer begins. It was probably one of the first things I noticed about the country when I came here as a child and learned to do the same. Even the non-religious or the non-Muslim in Jordan engages […]

By now, everyone has probably seen Shepard Fairey’s famous Obama poster that is destined to become a piece of contemporary art history. The “Hope” and “Change” poster has been a trademark of this election’s more cultural elements. But I doubt the poster may have been as famous as it is today had it not been […]

“When there is no freedom, there is no creativity.” - Jordan Writers Association President, Soud Qbeilat, on the jailing of 27-year-old Jordanian poet Islam Samhan, who has been charged with insulting Islam and the Koran as well as violating the Press and Publications Law for incorporating Koranic verses in to his love poems. If found […]

God rest his soul

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A few weeks ago, a reader sent me an interesting message. Working as a sales representative in a local publishing house she asked one of the company’s writers why they didn’t have/start a blog. The response has been playing in my head for some time: “because I’m not going to write anything I’m not getting […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 information […]

I was reading this AP piece today and it occurred to me that it’s actually pretty reflective of something I’ve observed recently: there are a lot of foreigners learning Arabic in Jordan. Casual visits to areas like Rainbow Street feel like study halls. Most of them are American. The numbers are increasing to the point […]