I was having a conversation last night with my sister about the things that piss me off in Jordan, typically the whole west Ammani atmosphere, and an offspring of that conversation got me thinking this fine morning. The title of this post is derived from one of my favorite books/movies, Fight Club, in which the […]

…heartless people…
AMMAN - The authorities said they will intensify measures to prevent retailers from stockpiling oil derivatives as several distributors of fuel and gas were reportedly arrested and referred to court Saturday…Officials said the new measures are meant to curb a trend among some petrol station owners and gas cylinder distributors to turn back customers […]

There is an absurd law - the Citizenship law - in Jordan that women who marry foreigners cannot pass the Jordanian citizenship on to their children. Most reside in Jordan, these are Jordanian women, with, for all intents and purposes, Jordanian kids who were born on this soil and have probably lived here their entire […]

This time last year was quite memorable when it came to the holiday season. A merging of Eid Al-Adha, Christmas and New Years gave way to the longest recorded holiday in recent Jordanian history. This was remedied by the King scrapping two unnecessary holidays and the government presetting the holidays ahead of time. So this […]

This was an interesting article in today’s Jordan Times outlining the Jordan-Iraqi border check procedures that include radiation scans:
The most common products containing radioactive elements that enter the border are agricultural goods, as years of warfare have contaminated Iraqi soil. Border officials had to deny entry to Iraqi trucks carrying dates, as their radiation levels […]

Snapped on my cell phone:

In light of a recent debate on the issue, I’ve started to wonder whether there is a fine line to be drawn between celebrating and commercializing. Can one be done without the other in a commercial atmosphere? Where do we draw the line?

addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.black-iris.com%2F2007%2F12%2F14%2Fsheep-at-the-mall%2F’;
[…]

As we were driving around Amman the other night and the jolly Christmas lights and decorations glared from the balconies of apartments and doors of homes, my friend wondered out loud why there’s so much emphasis on Christmas but not on Eid Al-Adha. My initial response was not all that well thought out as I […]

When it comes to working in Jordan, in a field that will often require a great deal of research, getting information is tough. As one management consultant told me recently, you have to “hustle”. The media sector is shackled to the wall with all the access to information laws designed to keep them off the […]

Zaina, a colleague of mine at Jordan Business, wrote an interesting opinion piece in this month’s issue entitled “Breathing Spaces”. She pointed out the lack of public spaces in Amman is a troubling dilemma now more than ever, with the rapid urbanization of the city. So she proposed that instead of taxing owners of empty […]

Ammoun News reported yesterday, that a GAM worker discovered a new born baby in a plastic garbage bag, just beneath the Abdoun suspension bridge. The worker heard the baby’s cries and found him shivering and blue from the cold. This is the second newborn that’s been found in the garbage in the past 2 and […]

It will be kind of interesting (at least for me) to see if the average citizen has the ability to play a role in holding other members of society and even governments accountable for their actions. Especially in the absence of any efficient and independent mechanism for political accountability in Jordan. Consider it another 7iber […]

Look, I’m not a parent, so this isn’t one of those preachy I-know-best posts. At least it’s not intended that way. I’m positive that parenting is the hardest job in the world so I’m not going to pretend to endow my wisdom upon the masses. But I am a critic. And this is a country […]

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, there are more food poisoning cases. After fish, water and shawarmah (several times), humus is suspected by officials, to be the latest culprit.

Health Minister Salah Mawajdeh told The Jordan News Agency, Petra, that final results are expected to be out in […]

Parliamentary elections are officially up and running now. The first two days of candidate registration saw 916 names and as Lina points out, 15.8% of which are women. That’s a pretty decent percentage in my case, considering that the majority of that number are from fairly conservative cities like Irbid and Kerak. Although it’s yet […]

Bab il-7ara was a big hit this year during Ramadan, and in fact people still seem to be talking about it in Jordan. I’ll admit right off the bat that I was too busy to watch more than 4 or 5 whole episodes but I found it astonishing to see the wide spectrum of people […]

A lot of people have been talking about this around town lately, since Laylat il-Qadr, but only recently did I get to watch it:

“It was an emotionally charged scene worthy of an Oprah Winfrey show when a mother and son who had been parted for 25 years were reunited on live TV. However the American […]