Earth hour, elections, world cup qualifiers, security matters and Arab solidarity.

I got to the B café at around 6:30 PM Saturday evening. Apprehensive and anticipating. You see, I very rarely watch football matches. But it so happened that the timing for The kingdom of Saudi Arabia vs. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s match was tossed before me earlier that day, and the urgency and anticipation in the tone with which it was delivered told me there is more to this match than pure kicks and headers. So as I was about to blow my first pull of double apple Bahrini, the new Malbari proprietor of the café comes to me and tells me there going to be a blackout. By Dewa. All over Dubai. For one Hour. From 8:30 to 9:30……..

????

What gives? A maintenance shutdown all over the city? Or are they rationing power now? This doesn’t make since. I tell the thin Keralite dude to get me Dewa customer services number. And I call them.

“hello”
“hello”
“alsalam alikum”
“wa alikum al salalam”
“power is going to be cut off today?” (now, please tell, how could I have made the question more articulate?)
“yes, for one hour”
“sure? All over Dubai”
“YES. All over”
“streetlights too?”
“no, streetlights and traffic lights are ok”
“ok”
“ok”

Ahmadi Najad appears on TV, waving to 120,000 crowds in Tehran's Azadi Stadium. The guy is shopping for votes, somebody says. He doesn’t strike me as football savvy. I turn to the thin keralite, who had just gotten thinner. And I asked him if he’s prepared, and that we want to continue to watch the match, if you please. He said he’s not prepared. I curse, but not him. Poor dude was caught off guarded by Dewa’s sudden un-prescheduled power outage. He’s already struggling to cater to the dominantly Arab customers and to appease the Egyptian staff. And now with few die-hard Saudi fans in the mix, it’s impossible for him not to be panicked by the power outage. I remember something; I grab my cell phone and call the head of security at my building. I tell him about the cut-off. And I tell him to be prepared. He’s clueless, too. I tell him to mobilize flash lights and to open up the electrical barrier to the parking lot. And to disable the lift at least five minutes before 8:30. That was all I could think of. He’s panicking now. Poor guy isn’t prepared for such events. And he’s got a beer belly the size of a foot ball. Talking of which Iran has just scored. Their left side midfielder is freaking fast like a rocket. Shihab 3 in his own right.

The Saudis are now very agitated at the referee. The match is surprisingly good. But the refereeing is amateurish. The Saudis are cursing the referee now. One of them, who popped in during the 15 minutes break between halftimes, asks me if Tayseer is playing. I falter and then tell him that Tayseer isn’t playing. He tells me he should and I concur. I am horrified at the prospect of having to tell these guys the power is going to be cut off and they’ll miss the last 15 minutes of the match. Because I am sure neither the thin Malbari guy (who’s almost disappeared now), nor the Egyptians, could make the announcement. So I’ll be relied upon to relay the info. Or we could just play dumb. Ahmadi Najad is on the screen now. Totally engrossed in the match. I take another pull and puff with apparent agitation. One of the Egyptians nudges me from the back and tells me that the power is NOT going to be cut off. That it is actually a voluntary initiative if you’d like to join the effort and turn off the light at your home or your establishment at your own volition. Things fall together at that moment, and I remember the earth hour initiative. How could I not make the connection? VOLUNTARILY is the key word, assholes. I was about to deliver a curse of my own when a sudden flurry of activities takes place in front of me. I turn back to look at the wall-mounted TV and the Saudis are scoring an equalizer. We all jump in unison and start cheering and clapping. I saw quite few of the black heavy cords (you know the one fixed over the traditional Arab male head cover?) in the room go up to the ceiling and come back to be plucked precisely at the same moment, boomerang style. I forget to call the head of security at my building with the update on Earth Hour. The Saudi commentator is supplicating the almighty for a second goal, and damn, the Saudis are really playing good. I suddenly don’t feel very disappointed at the match and the earth hour. The Saudis are fighting now. Every single calorie of Kabsa they’ve eaten in their entire life is coming out in the form of energy in Azadi Stadium. Here’s a lob to the penalty zone, a Saudi forward butts the ball gently with his head and it changes course a notch, the ball seems to be going in. WOW IT’S GOING IN. The Iranian goal keeper stretch his entire Persian physique to threw it away. He touches it with the tips of his fingers. But it still goes in. damn. We repeat the same ritual. All rise in unison. Heavy black cords hit the ceiling. Neanderthal-type voices echoing everywhere. The Saudi commentator is ecstatic. And he lost his voice. But he nonetheless takes the obligatory detour from the match to recite quite few poems. Some Badawi, some formal Arabic. The spectators in the B café are laughing, the mood is much better. The Malbari guy is temporarily relieved. Dewa is forgotten for now. His excellency president Ahmadi Najjad is not on the screen any longer. The Korean referee blows his distinct three successive whistles and the match is over. I manage to pay my bill with agility and move out of the place while the cords are hitting the ceiling and everybody is still busy celebrating. Waiting for me at the gate-barrier to the under ground parking lot when I get back to my building is a not-very-pleased head of security.

A warning about undully parking - posted in the parking lot of my building.

Gulf News: Man Shot Dead in Parking Lot.

Sunday, 29th March 2009.

Dubai (WAM) A man was shot dead in Dubai yesterday in an operation believed to be an assassination, a top police official said.

lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, chief of Dubai police, said: "The murder of the Chechen seems to be an assassination because he was shot dead in the parking of the building where he was living"

"It seems the 36-years-old victim, called Sulaiman Madov, had been under surveillance for some time," Lt. Gen Dahi said.

The Dubai Police Chief immediately rushed to the scene and was accompanied by Major General Khamis Mattar Al Mazienah, Deputy Chief of Dubai police, and director of the Security State Department.

Isn't it called "State Security Department"?


Edit: this reminds me of this :)

Six fo' five was the time on the clock,
When me and my homey bailed in the parking lot.
The scene looked strange and it felt like a set up
Better not be, cause if it is, they're getting lit up.
Oh here they come from the back and they laxed.
I'm checkin for the gats they strap, so whats up black?
Chill, lets hit a deal, if it aint up to what you feel then grab your steel.
Right, so, what you motherfuckers gonna come at me with?
Hope you ain't wantin' none of my grip. Cause you can save that shit.
Guess what they told me?
'We give you 20 G's if you snitch on your homey,
We'll put you in a home, and make your life plush,
Oh yeah, but you got to sell dope for us."
Hmmm, let me think about it
Turned my back and grabbed my gat and guess what I told him before I shot it:
'If you don't quit, yeah,
if you don't stop, yeah,
I'm lettin' my gat pop'
Cause it's 1-8-7 on an undercover cop
Yeah, and you don't stop,
cause it's 1-8-7 on an undercover cop
Yeah, and you don't stop,
cause it's 1-8-7 on an undercover cop

Dream.

It all started back home in Aleppo, I was probably on a vacation. And was planning to go to some place. Mapping the route in my head. The scene was around the Al Maktoom's bridge. And then I concluded a business deal with some engineer, the details are sketchy here. He mentions a name or two of his clients. I was supposed to secure authority approvals for them or something. I didn't like him, he was stuffy and rude. And he had deadlines. The scene changes to my neighborhood here in Al Bada'. He then calls me and tells me there's this client in Amman, Jordan, and I have to fly there ASAP. I think it was a Filipino guy on a bicycle who was couriering the messages back and forth between us, even though they were voice messages. I land in Amman and go to the location of the big project under the name of a big engineer. I wait and loiter around the place doing nothing. It's a building site. But looks like an old Hara (an old street in a popular, crowded neighborhood in an Arab city). Few noisy teenagers are smoking pot at the corner. And then I think it was a janitor, or something like that, who calls me. Or maybe I ask him. He's by far the nicest person I will have met that day. He points in a direction and I walk towards the site office. Inside, many people are gathered around T (or L) shaped meeting table. I squeeze next to two girls with head scarves and they seem a bit uncomfortable, I ask if they'd rather I change my seat, and they say yes. I then shift place to the other side of the table facing two senior female engineers, again in head cover. I am totally in that room. The big engineer comes in and he looks like Abd Albari Atwan. We go outside to a green lawn which turns out to be finely-textured industrial carpet. Although the grounds are sloped my shoes get a good traction and I don't fall down. The two female engineers look out at the great extension of the hill side and point toward a place down there in the artificial lawn, very far away, miles away, where gigantic lights form written words much like an Announcement Board at the airport. And these words; what are they? Currency exchange rate. Laid out for all Amman to see. At that moment I think of a journalist friend of mine, and the reporting he did from Amman few month ago. He must have had trouble getting people to talk and standing his ground. A stranger in a foreign city. Especially in a city like this. It must have been difficult. I then get inside somehow and we're in the living room of an old friend's house; one Jordanian guy whom I must have met in Aleppo University, but I can't tell who because I met quite a few. His younger brother asks me how is he doing. They haven't seen him in ten years. I enthusiastically state that he's fine. His mother, who is sitting on the opposite couch and whispering while rolling the beads of her rosary, shushes her younger son. She doesn't want to hear about the older one? Probably. Who knows. I hate this city. I don't care less how the old bastard is doing. I'm being nice to people but no one returns the courtesy.

And then after I wake up, it takes ten minutes to realize that I haven't ever been to Amman in real life.

Different times call for different measures.

I work in a small outfit. A formidable army of two architect, two structural engineers, one resident civil (not so civil in the literal sense) engineer, one MEP (electromechanical and plumbing) engineer, three site inspectors, and two draftsmen.

The lucrative, booming construction industry of Dubai had drawn lots of vultures. I know of people who possess no past knowledge at all in engineering, no past experience at all in the gruelling construction market of Dubai or elsewhere, who had risen to an impressive steads in the wake of the building craze. One particular person comes to mind, an acquaintance who used to work in a furniture store with a friend of mine. In one courageous leap (one that had apparently required heaving the skirt so that a full potential of a legs-apart jump could be harnessed), she had ascended to a decent position with a reputable Speciality Materials supply company. In fact, the leap wasn't quite that quick, she did a short stint with a false-ceiling accessory supplier, during which she was completely clueless. My friend, out of sheer concern for her career's advancement, pointed her in my direction and told her I could help. I couldn't. She didn't have an idea what she was about to wade through. I told her what her product is. And who are the likely interested customers. I envisaged her (in her pin-striped business suit, high heels and tight cotton blouse (buttoned up all the way to the throat)) sobbing silently while in a porta-cabin meeting with ten smelly dark-skinned beings. (look, I am not a racist, but what where do you think the majority of procurement staff at contracting companies come from?).

Sadly, Talia would sobbed her way through to become a regional manager, no less, with the gigantic suppliers I mentioned earlier. I am not envious. The moral of the story is that it doesn't matter how much sweat you put in, and how severe is the stinking smell you have to show for it. The decisions taken in the dark silence of boardrooms, lit only by unfathomable images from video projectors, while marketing divas prattle on about products they know very briefly, these decisions is what makes a business rise or fall.

You may call me a cynic. Or an old fashioned slob. But I've perceived too many theories of invisible alliances and discreet guilds. Where the fair-skinned hustlers pull together. From bankers and financiers, to real-estate developers and real estate brokers, to media, advertisement, events organizers, to exhibitions, property launches and gala dinners. (some people impart them the unfair fancy term of gold-diggers.) You know what? I hate them all. They are necessary cogs in the turning, churning wheel of economy, especially in a global financial and business hub like Dubai. But that doesn't make their existence and their pretentiousness any more easier or digestible.

Perhaps I'm being mean. Maybe I am just coming up with excuses to justify why I am still working for the same guy after almost six years of being here. The secret guild will give you that feeling. That you're missing out on lots of stuff. I am grateful that I could keep my job so far. And that none of my colleagues were laid off (or made redundant). Construction will not stop in Dubai. It will continue for the foreseeable future. In fact, now is the perfect time to build if you've got the money in your pockets. And this is the main reason why our outfit is still alive. There are some deep pockets in the chasms of our company that want to build, and build fast. I've realized this as I witnessed a hounded million derhams worth of concrete, steel, marble, glass and labor man-hours being signed on today. The second party was a A class builder who would usually have a chip on his shoulder, back then when the guild was thriving. Only six months ago, they would have spurned our invitation. Our meager project wouldn't have rate a 'deep regret' letter (I wouldn't have accepted no regret unless it's a double-basement shoring-pile deep). You see, times are changing, and it's time for a representative of humble local builder like me (us) to brag.

I'm afraid the glee will continue until Talia shows up again and shoves me off the podium.

Fornicating snails.

Dear Hostess:

Look, I don't hate you that much. I probably don't hate you at all. But I definitely hate the occasion that brings us together. I get cramps every time I meet you. I know it's not your fault. I know you're trying your best to make me comfy. I know you're pretty and smart (at least smarter than your sister), but tell me how could I make that work to my advantage in the fucking stratosphere? I told you about the cramps right? It's the seat. My cheap self flying economy class. But you understand peer pressure works in a reverse way too, don't you? What my friends and colleague are going to say about me when they get a whiff that I've flown the flat bed? And then there's Climate Change and Global Warming. I don't care to what extent man kind are culpable in screwing up the planet, but I fucking know the flight is getting shakier every time. We are 40,000 feet above sea level, that should mean immunity from volatile weather, right? well it doesn't. Air turbulences. Damn air fronts are playing squash with my heart beat. Look, I know it's safe. Stop regurgitating the same hollow assurances over and over. I bet you don't believe them yourself. Argh, how I wish I could strip off my seat belt and strangle the fattie next to me, I mean, not only he occupies more space than politically correct, he also doesn't miss a meal or a refreshment. And then he needs to go to the loo. And suddenly I burst laughing, "MMFD"!! that's my location. I remember I read somewhere that American AF air traffic controllers in the first gulf war were left baffled when many times their British counterparts would report their locations as MMFD. Nowhere on the map there was an MMFD. Look around, buddies, MMFD is everywhere. Hey, you could use that! ever got passengers asking you where were they? tell them, it's MMFD!

Aww... you look kind of lovely all of the sudden. Come where, lean over...the cramps are easing off... what's that? what you saying? I thought we're going to kiss?! what? a sleeping pill in my orange juice??

Wha......?

ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Six years ago.

It wasn't a cold night, but the atmosphere was grim. I couldn't sleep. I'd been watching Al Jazeera all night. Saddam was given a 24 hours (or probably 48, I can't remember) ultimatum to step down. He didn't. At 6 AM my local time the correspondent ducked down for dear life when the anti-aircraft cannons sent their first burst into the darkness of Baghdad. It was impossible to tell directions. But we knew from limited experience that those volleys where useless. My dad walked into the room with sleepy eyes, bless his heart, he wouldn't miss a good night sleep no matter what. I read the caption 'decapitating strikes' on CNN International. So they've aimed for Saddam, who wouldn't step down. The locations selected for the strikes were based on 'intelligence' reports. Less than an hour later Saddam appeared on TV, sleepy eyed himself. He threatened and growled. He's alive and unafraid. The decapitating strikes apparently struck elsewhere. Or something less significant was decapitated. I went to work. The air was tense and the morning coffee ritual was abandoned. Few brought their hand held radios with them. Coffee was taken at respective desks. Amazingly, productivity was higher than usual that day. No pranks, no loud banters, no wagers. I've seen my boss's secretary, a college student who otherwise appeared carefree and bubbly, dabbing her silent tears with her shawl. Somebody announced that Iraq responded with a barrage of Scud missiles at 'American Bases' in Kuwait. I wondered how many innocent Kuwaitis were killed.

The news were sketchy and still sinking in, but by mid morning it was clear that the war on Iraq was proceeding full swing. I got off work and went home to be glued to my seat in front of TV, that would invariably be the case for the next 3 weeks. We were told Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, living in the vicinity of Iraq, we were wondering if he'd use them and what would be the implication for us? we weren't particularly afraid. But there was an abundance of anger. WMDs aside, the war had all the hallmarks of a colonial foray. And so for three weeks we watched. We've witnessed the first big war in the 21st century being fought. A group of 40 Iraqi republican guards, in the small town/outpost of Om Kasr, only few metres away from the borders, captured the news and the attention at Al Jazeera for the first few days. They've held their grounds and slowed the advances of the British finest. 50 civilians in Al Basra were massacred in one night. A poor American kid who claimed to be a technician was 'interviewed' on Iraqi TV. The divisions of the Iraqi republican guards were getting annihilated one after the other by a combination of an idiotic deployment and a new mysterious weapon. A heavy bombardment left downtown Baghdad ablaze, and the reflections on Tigris river gave the scene a rather Neronian touch of a torched metropolis. 'Baghdad burns' was Al Jazeera's caption. Their military analyst was assuring us that the presidential guards (30 K strong) are yet to enter the fight. When my parents weren't around, I'd watch Donald Rumsfield press conferences on CNN or Foxnews. Most of the time he appeared smug and arrogant. But in one particular day he looked tired and gravely concerned. I was astonished myself, are they losing the war? Kofi Annan was nowhere to be seen. A colleague at work opined that Saddam should have been smarter with disguises and camouflages, he should have used massive fans to blow sand from the desert and create a cloud of dust that could disperse and disrupt the signals of the self-guided (or laser-guided) Cruise missiles. Few colleagues concurred, others thought otherwise, a long winding argument ensued. What a bunch of a jerks. The Iraqi Information Minister, one Saeed Al Sahhaf, had his daily fiery reports. He called American soldiers 'villains' and 'despicable' and all the kind of the demeaning words of a Shakespearean play you could think of. To be honest, he was somewhat in his own literary world. Because as things developed, he was smiling and a rather upbeat in a press conference while the other half of the screen carried the image of an American tank perched on Al Hurrya (freedom) bridge smack dab in the middle of Baghdad. It was almost comical. That night bore the heaviest fighting, the sound of artillery shells rent the vault of the sky in and around Baghdad, we heard the airport fell to the Americans, then we heard it was recaptured. The next day Mr. Al Sahhaf was interviewed in front of his flat carrying an AK 47. He reassured the Arab masses that the fight is still on. 24 hours later the statue was toppled. The 30 K strong presidential guards were nowhere to be seen. I told my father that the surreal scene had the fingerprints of Hollywood set. He couldn't believe how it could have been staged. At that moment I recalled how couple of weeks ago that day, at the academy award ceremony, a blond American female actress (probably Susan Sarandon) , denounced Bush and benignly said: 'peace is the answer'. I've also seen a group of kids on Fox crushing CDs of the Dixie Chicks band under their feet. Saddam was in the other side of town in the middle of large crowd, which gathered rather frantically after he appeared from nowhere. Someone hauled him over shoulders, and hands rose and started to clap. We watched, but didn't clap. The fight was over. The Iraqi national museum was looted. Baghdad ancient library was partly burned and partly rubbed. I felt helpless and angry. But we couldn't do much. So we just watched.....


Six years on, ever the credulous spectators, we're still watching.....

في اسبوع التدوين السوري ضد المثلية : A homophobe debunked. :)

The anti-homosexuality campaign launched by few Syrian bloggers is in full-swing. The most prominent of the contenders, Mohammad (of Mohammad online), has done what I expected him to do eventually; deny us, the opponents of his motion, the chance to fully express our opinions on his blog. At least that was the case with me. I usually refrain from addressing highly contentious issues on my blog, but since I was denied the opportunity to highlight the opposing point of view, I am left with no option but to use my den. Which is a pleasure, bring it on.

Ok, that was the official press release, now the real deal is that the aforesaid person didn't allow my last comment on his blog to appear because he was getting owned pretty badly. I am usually not that smug when stating my intellectual 'prowess' unless the exchange is with a hate inciter. As Rime puts it, the only thing that can't be tolerated is intolerance itself.

You can follow the exchange in Arabic on the aforesaid person's blog. To give you a little bit of a background, the aforesaid person started off his campaign with a highly presumptuous statement, he 'defined' homosexuality (while asserting that, indeed, it doesn't need a definition) as any deviation in sexual activities of mankind from what is innate or natural in us. He even threw in all kind of fetishes as sexual deviations too. (one should wonder what's the recommended sexual position according to the innately endowed human beings like himself?) .

I, of course, found this definition to be highly problematic. Since 'innateness' (or natural order) itself isn't an invariable thing. There is absolutely no one die human beings are cast to. I asked him to come up with a clear definition of this 'innateness' and he kept dodging around the subject. He's probably clueless, doesn't know what he's talking about, just plain stubborn, or all of the above.

He opined that innateness is an incontrovertible fact that doesn't need to be defined. It has to be taken on its own merits. He asked me to define what he thinks of as similar terms like 'soul', 'love', 'fear of God' ....etc....

I countered that he's coming up with terms and asking me to define them. Anyway, I passed on 'soul' and 'fear of God' and tried to define 'love' for him. I told him there's the chemical, neurotic implication of the matter, and there's the psychological understanding of this compound emotion. And then there's the personal, subjective, relative conception of Love. I might have my own definition of love that might differ from his, but I wouldn't place an entire campaign of hate on a loosely put and tossed around terms.

To try to explain to him the ever-evolving nature of human biology and DNA, I brought up the subject of genetic mutation. And that all things equal, we can't discount the possibility that homosexual predispositions could be the result of genetic mutations. He wasn't convinced. He said that if this is the case then percentage of gays amongst a given population would surpass 50% (!!). I urged him to read this link to educate himself about the subject. I further explained to him that by the virtue of it being a dead-end for breeding and reproducing, homosexuality will not pass from one parent to his progeny (since there's no progeny to begin with). And thus ending the line of variation there and then. The trend de-evolves where it begins. He wasn't convinced. In fact, I suspect that he never read the link, since he keeps repeating the same questions over and over again.

Then, I tackled his claim that most of the societies of the world are actually against gays. Most people of the heterosexual world hate gays but they won't admit it. I asked him to prove this and he said that he has stories from his stay in the UK that he'd share with me later.

I told him that I don't care how many homophobes he was delighted to meet in the UK, there are laws that protect gays against discrimination. And since there are laws then the legislatures have penned them at one point. And legislatures don't usually pull regulations out of their asses. They respond to public demands and to civil rights organizations and Establishments.

He picked up on a point I made during the exchange, I told him that he doesn't have to like homosexuals. That I, personally, don't feel at ease around them. (but heck, I'd probably met many closet gays in my life that I thought were straight, who knows? and more importantly, who cares?). But that's totally different from inciting hate or calling for discrimination. I may feel uneasy about extremely fat people or people with stinking breath smell. But I wouldn't discriminate against them. And I wouldn't call my uneasiness racist or discriminatory in and of itself.

I particularly loved it when conspiracy theories kicked in in his mind. He said that western societies' tolerance toward homosexuals (and the exclusion of homosexuality from APA list of mental illnesses), is the result of the massive sway the civil rights movements and organizations hold over legislatures and judicial system. He also added that any scientist who'd discover something in the line of that homosexuality is an acquired disorder, he or she wouldn't dare to share it with the public.

It's easy to understand why civil rights organizations are powerful, isn't it? I mean, they did emanate from the people and the mainstream societies themselves. Whatever clout they have it's derived from their representation of what the people want. Isn't that why they're called Civil Rights' Movements?

As for the scientific endeavor into the subject, I told him that scientists have nothing to worry about, they publish whatever they want in reviews and periodicals. And there are always counter claims, science is a never ending process. And civil rights and human rights movement wouldn't meddle there. They would, however, interfere if the proverbial scientist added to his study his own personal opinion that gays should be discriminated against or considered dangerous to the society.

There was an interesting tweak in the exchange when he claimed that there is no freedom of speech in the west, and that historians who deny the holocaust gets imprisoned and persecuted. And then, to my delight, he literally said: ففي امريكا انت تتمتع بكامل حقوقك البشرية إلا في مخالفتك" للتوجه السائد. " (In America, you enjoy all your civil rights until you go against the mainstream beliefs).

I simply replied that if he then acknowledge that tolerance toward homosexuality is a dominant disposition in the US, then I totally agree with him. He proved my point for me :)

I also reminded him that there are many homophobes in the west and the east alike. But they are minority. Take a look at this website for instance.

And to wrap up this chapter once and for all, I told him to go on any popular UK or US facebook groups or online forums and post his homophobic opinions there and ask the questions he likes. I'd be interested to see what sorts of responses he'd get. I don't know whether he will do that or not, since he didn't even publish my comment in which I kindly requested him to do so.

And eventually, I explained to him that his hateful speech is very counterproductive and that all his claims about raising awareness and such are nothing but sober hallucinations. I told him that when we promote tolerance toward special groups and minorities in the east, we're also defending Muslims' rights against discrimination in the west. Human rights don't know color, creed, race, age, gender or genital activeness. There are many racist and Islamophobic threats toward Muslims in the west, amongst which is the call that was popular amongst certain type of radio talking heads few years ago, that concentration camps should be built in the United States to round up Muslims in case another 9/11 [God forbids] struck again. Who does protect Muslims against such outrageous bigotry? isn't it civil right movements?

I can't say I overly enjoyed this debate. But I certainly don't regret it, especially since it ended up with a massive pwnage :)

Have a nice day. I'll now leave you in the safe hands of Boy George. ;)

Musical Progression.

The illiterate nation.

Last year in Dubai, Egyptian writer Sa’id Makawi – shortlisted for the 2008 Arab Booker Prize – and British children’s author Anthony Horowitz were talking when Horowitz received a call from his London-based publisher.

His Necropolis series was selling, and well. According to Isobel Abulhoul, the organiser of this year’s inaugural Emirates International Literature Festival, Horowitz returned to the conversation and told Makawi he was selling a thousand copies an hour in London alone.

Makawi, one of the Arab world’s leading writers was shocked. His novel, Taghridah al-ba’ajah (The Swan Song) had only sold 1000 copies in total.

This is a sad, sad reality. What's going on? Why don't Arabs read?

I will try to answer on behalf of a non-reading Arabs, since we're good at coming up with excuses, it should not be hard to predict what he/she's got to say about it.

-No Time:

Bullshit. You spend hours and hours playing cards and watching European champions league and your local league and endless football leagues and analysts railing at the referee or the coach or the weather. If you have time for this crap (albeit a harmless leisurely pastime), then you do have the time to read.

- No money:

Don't tell me it's the low GDP per-capita, books aren't that expensive anyway. Look at India. They buy copyrights for English books and print it cheap for their youth. And honestly, it's my experience that generally speaking, the more financially comfortable an Arab becomes, the less he reads.

- No interest:

There is a general conception that reading is a luxury. It is a luxury in the sense that if you don't read you will not die. You will live without reading. But a very intellectually depleted and hollow life. There is, also, the general notion that, if you ever have the time, you'd be better off reading Qur'an or a book of Hadith. I won't argue with that. Quran is a book of a great linguistic quality and I enjoy reading it with the Tafseer sometimes. Any reading of any kind is beneficial, however, there should be some sort of a balance. Human knowledge is vast and it's deep. Your brain will need a diverse collection of natural supplements to grow.

Background noise. You know that thing that keeps ringing in your ears and in the back of your mind like a monotone? What's that like in your case? A Haifa Wahbeh's song? the cadence of a despicable boss? the nagging of your wife? the traffic noise? why don't you replace all that with literary gems and thought-provoking readings? I swear your monotone will break and you will become surprised at how fast your mind will snap to a new and novel thought. I am not preaching, I know many of you out there are very diligent readers. The irony of this post is that the intended recipient will not read it.

Wait, I should probably translate it too.

Youtube ban?!

Picking up from Alexander’s post. Youtube will probably get banned soon in the UAE, no more jizzing in the pants, you've been warned.

Lt Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, Dubai Police Chief, was addressing the assembly of Juvenile Education and Care association, when he said that some of YouTube content sparks dissent. The media took that as a cue that the video-sharing website might get banned. I am not so sure that will be the case.

If the Juvenile Care association is still as I remember (from couple of articles few years ago), then their recommendations are not at all obligatory to the executive leaders of Dubai. Dignitaries, senior citizens and businessmen meet in a Majlis-like forum, and they discuss the status quo of juveniles and the problems they face in their education and social life. Couple of years ago they recommended (rightly, in my opinion) banning the silly songs-request-SMS-stupid-flirting- sleaze-promotion TV channels. What happened? The channels proliferated exponentially. (Sounds like Haifa Wahebe’s breasts and half-moon ass aren’t as arousing as youtube videos, but I digress.)

There comes the inevitable question, is youtube totally ‘safe’? Of course not, and I wholeheartedly support censorship on some of its content. Especially the kind of hate inciting content. You might choose to believe otherwise, but WE DO NOT have democracy and total freedom of expression in the Arab World. We have a vicious Sunni-Shia sectarian strife. We have an intimidating rate of illiteracy. We have an intimidating rate of credulity. The stable and relatively prosperous Arab societies are stable because there are measures that ENSURE everything stays stable. Even when stability sometimes borders on stagnation….. in short, I am not worried about moral disintegration of societies, I am worried about strives and rifts. So for the time being, some of the content, in my opinion, may have to be censored.

Having said that, and with all due respect to Lieutenant General Dhahi, he is a law enforcement officer, he sees the darker side of town every day; murders, riots, drug smuggling...the whole nine yards. He might have come across crimes that were, for the sake of argument, inspired by youtube. But that’s not the grand picture is it? the society, any society as a whole, needs interactive media websites because the benefits outweighs the damages by many folds. Youtube isn’t only about dissent and defamation, it’s also about education, interaction, dialogue and understanding. So a total ban on the website is not the answer.

What y’all guys think?

No egg was forthcoming.

Two penguins native to Antarctica met one spring day in 1998 in a tank at the Central Park Zoo in midtown Manhattan. They perched atop stones and took turns diving in and out of the clear water below. They entwined necks, called to each other and mated. They then built a nest together to prepare for an egg. But no egg was forthcoming: Roy and Silo were both male.

Roy and Silo are gay bastards. They are having a same-sex affair without our consent. We should probably seek to either destroy them or straighten up their behaviour. I am not sure how do we do that though? as homo-sapiens we are capable of inflicting our desires on our fellow humans. But it's ironic, isn't it? I mean the leaders of Moral Legions would always cite animals as the ultimate proof of the deviatory essence of homosexuality, they'd say "if it's natural, then why animals don't do it?". I am not sure how would they react to findings of such study as above, they'd probably write it off as a Zionist/Crusaders conspiracy, or they'd call it a test from the higher powers to see whose faith would wither at the sight of fornicating birds, and whose faith will hold. Or maybe they'd brand it as optical illusion.

But remember, no egg was forthcoming.

For the sake of completing the rainbow of colors my fellow bloggers Abu Fares, and Yazan were talking about (although it honestly sounds to me as if there are only two colors, no middle ground), I should probably carve my own opinion into the rocks of apathy and antipathy to have a color of my own. After all there are Zillions of colors out there in nature. So it's only apt that I have my own niche, my own color.

I don't particularly hate homosexuals. There is this 'unease', for the lack of better expression. I think the subject of homosexuality is uncomfortable for all straight Arab men no matter how liberal we are. Heck, it's probably uncomfortable to gays themselves; I'm yet to meet a homo who is entirely comfortable exposing his sexual orientation in any Arab country. I imagine the kind of pressures exerted on them. It's no wonder they end up with behavioural disorders. So I guess it's the critical and extremely difficult status of these fellows that engender their abnormal behaviours. Why is it that in the evil West they've embraced the diversity and acknowledged the existence of this deviant group, look at Boy George for example, he'd engraved his name in the hall of fame of UK 80s music. I like Boy George by the way....errr.. I mean I like his music.

But alas, no egg was forthcoming.

We should probably note something else too, that fashion industry is rampant with gays, both men and women. I've always wondered why, heck, even the salesmen at Debenhams look kind of gay. Might it be their weird haircuts and flashy uniforms? it might. God, what the world has come to, you can't tell straight from gay anymore. On the other hand, I'd understand why most fashion designers are gay. It's probably easier for women to get groped, rubbed and fingered by gays; all being requisites of a fashion designer's job. For a desperate straight man the prospect might be appealing, all you have to do is learn some fashion design techniques, talk like a queer and apply for a job at a decent store and keep your fingers crossed, probably your legs too. Only thing is that you have to be careful for your real sexual identity not to be uncovered, especially since they make sure that you wear tight pants everyday for work, one single boner would blow you up (...) and you'd end up Jizzing in Your Pants.

To recycle or not to recycle?

Recycling has been a hot issue in Dubai for the last year or so. I've listened to more talk shows about reusing plastic shopping bags (or replacing them with brown paper bags) than I care to remember. To be honest with you? I didn't go with the flow from the beginning. I am not sure why. It could probably be because I am irrehabitably lazy. Or because I am wary of all over-hyped media campaigns. Or because the whole thing sounded like pseudo-science to me. But the 'experts' kept talking and opining about the perils of using plastic bags that I've become unwittingly guilty every time I went shopping. A sick feeling of irresponsibility and negligence crept up my spine every time I saw a guy (you know those environmentally-conscious type) sorting his trash through the to-be-recycled garbage bins. But I've never recycled, probably never will. My philosophy has always been this: if it's too dangerous for mother earth, then let'em ban it altogether. I was relieved, though, to read recently that I wasn't totally off the mark with my prediction, here's why:



5 Ways People Are Trying to Save the World (That Don't Work)

#3. Recycling

Why People Do It:

We've all been raised to believe that unless we all recycle, our forests will soon be barren and we'll be living among mountains of our own filth, Wall-E style. Recycling is also supposed to use fewer resources and create less pollution. What could possibly be wrong with that?

Why They Shouldn't:

The image of the paper industry hacking down every tree until we were all gasping for lack of oxygen was always ridiculous; we've increased the number of trees over the last 50 years as logging companies plant more to ensure future supply.
Equally silly were the warnings most of us got hammered with growing up, about tales of overflowing landfills, full of trash that takes housands of years to biodegrade. At least in America, we were never in danger of walking through streets of garbage. Some expert at Gonzaga University, with a lot of time on his hands, calculated that at current rates all the garbage in the US over the next 1,000 years would fill up a 35 square mile landfill 100 yards deep.
This sounds like one of those "Holy shit!" scary figures until you consider this is about one tenth of one percent of the land currently used for grazing in the US. Also, this would be the accumulation over 1,000 years by which time we should have bigger things to worry about, like overthrowing our robotic overlords.

As for saving resources by recycling, this is where it gets tricky. Partly this is because whether or not recycling saves resources depends on whether you consider human labor to be a resource (that is, the effort to pick up, sort and transfer the items to be recycled). Recycling requires more trucks, more crews and more people to oversee the entire process. In Los Angeles alone there are twice as many garbage trucks than there would have been without the recycling program. Just like those douchebags who drive to the gym to run on a treadmill but still hop in the car to go the one block to the corner store to pick up their pork rinds and soda, it's not clear just how much benefit there is at the end of the day.
Also, re-using something is not always better than just tossing it away. A chemist at the University of Victoria calculated that you would need to use a ceramic mug 1,000 times before you would see benefits over using disposable polystyrene cups for those 1,000 cups of coffee. This is because it takes far more energy to make that mug and takes energy and water to wash it after each use.
Now obviously you can't take that to the extreme and go to a lifestyle of all-disposable dishes and clothes, and where every ink pen is sold in box made up of three pounds of cardboard and plastic. But the problem was never as bad as they kept telling us.

On the etymology of "Jazza"

'Jazza' in formal Arabic is a kind of a sharp word. It literaly means 'to cut'. More frequently used with grass... so 'jazza al 3osheb' is to 'mow the grass' (or the lawn).

The slang version (vernacular) of it is a bit more complicated, and it varies from one place to another. In Aleppo, for instance, we pronounce it 'Jazhzha' with a heavy 'Z'. It has many meanings. Let me cite some examples:

- 'Jazzitoh': means 'I beat him' (more like in a game of chess or cards, less in games like tennis or arm wreslting).

- 'Jazzitoh' (of a paragraph): like when you're in an exam and you've got a tough question asking you to repeat an entire paragraph or a chapter from your biology textbook, verbatime. If you got it all right, then you say: 'jazzitoh', which means you've nail it. You got it right from begining to end.

- 'Jazzitah': now this is seldom used, as far as I know. It means to have sex with a woman or a girl. But then there are 700 slangs which can pass for such meaning. It's still used though, I am kind of sure of that (don't ask me how).

- 'Jazzho': that's when someone screws somebody on paper. Like when a teacher gives low marks for a student. Or when your amiable colleague at work screws you with a bad report to the management. Or when the timekeeper strikes an 'abscent' next to your name on the time sheet. (it's a work of a pen, basically, like in the case of grass cutter, know what 'am sayin'?) I remember this vividly since we had a female timekeeper when I worked for one of the public sector establishments in Syria. She had large boobs and used to chew on a larger gum. She was always bored and the most exciting moment for her was when someone snuck out of the office while she was turned sideways to talk on the phone (which would usually last for hours), she'd catch their reflection on the window and nail them on the sheet. If they manage to come back before the end of work hours, then they might start imploring her: 'dakhilik la tejizzini' (please don't strike an 'abscent' next to my name). This is a gesture usually performed with your knees bent a little and your arms pushed forward and your fingers entwined.


Now for the English version of Jazza. As it might probably be obvious to you, Jazza is not a real word. But it's a common slang. Check out the Urban Dictionary definition:

"Jazza

The name Jazza refers to someone who’s amazingly awesome.

“Wow I wish I was Jazza so I could get all those hot chicks.” (said the real nick)"

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P.S. feel free to add your variations to the comments' section.