Dubai Jazz

The Elephant

2011-12-18T23:15:00.000+04:00

There is an old story from India that aptly illustrates how frame of reference affects an understanding of physical properties, and indeed of the larger setting in which those properties are manifested.

It is said that six blind men were presented with an elephant, a creature of which they had no previous knowledge, and each explained what he thought the elephant was.

The first felt of the elephant’s side, and told the others that the elephant was like a wall. The second, however, grabbed the elephant’s trunk, and concluded that an elephant was like a snake.

The third blind man touched the smooth surface of its tusk, and was impressed to discover that the elephant was a hard, spear-like creature. Fourth came a man who touched the elephant’s legs, and therefore decided that it was like a tree trunk. However, the fifth man, after feeling of its tail, disdainfully announced that the elephant was nothing but a frayed piece of rope. Last of all, the sixth blind man, standing beside the elephant’s slowly flapping ear, felt of the ear itself and determined that the elephant was a sort of living fan.

These six blind men went back to their city,and each acquired followers after the manner of religious teachers. Their devotees would then argue with one another, the snake school of thought competing with adherents of the fan doctrine, the rope philosophy in conflict with the tree trunk faction, and so on. The only person who did not join in these debates was a seventh blind man, much older than the others, who had visited the elephant after the other six.

While the others rushed off with their separate conclusions, the seventh blind man had taken the time to pet the elephant, to walk all around it, to smell it, to feed it, and to listen to the sounds it made.When he returned to the city and found the populace in a state of uproar between the six factions, the old man laughed to himself: he was the only person in the city who was not convinced he knew exactly what an elephant was like.

Excerpt from "Science of Everyday Things".

Burst Pipe

2011-12-14T11:15:00.005+04:00

Dubai: An underground water pipe that burst on Shaikh Zayed Road on Monday morning caused traffic congestion and a number of minor accidents, Dubai Police said.

The Al Marabe'e exit on Shaikh Zayed Road in the Sharjah direction was blocked by police as a result, and traffic was diverted which caused the congestion along the road and at the following exit.

Dubai Municipality workers and equipment were seen trying to fix the problem, while deep excavations were made on the side of the road, under the metro track.

Meanwhile, the congestion and unexpected diversion caused a few minor accidents in which no injuries were reported.

That was on Monday. The work on the damaged pipe hasn't been finished. And Al Marabe'e exit is still blocked, which has lead to this:

Taken this morning: Motorists forge their own trail through the Municipality tended lawn under the metro-track.

Later in the morning: Troops deployed to prevent state of anarchy.

I remember that a pipe (probably the same one) had burst back in 2006-07. Which is five years ago. Five years construction warranttee on the pipe expired?

Self Defenestration

2011-12-06T12:13:00.003+04:00

The father brought little Mohamed a trinket tied to a lanyard.

Little Mohamed loved it, he kept it slung around his neck all the time, getting on his mother's nerves.

The mother got fed up and took it from him and hung it on a window handle, where he couldn’t reach at his natural height.

The mother woke up the next morning, opened the window (which swings outward) to air the house.

She then got busy in the kitchen.

Little Mohamed woke up; saw his trinket hanging from a lanyard by the handle of the open window. It looked so beautiful in the sunlight, swaying with the soft morning breeze.

Mohamed brought a chair, climbed, and leaned out of the window frame to retrieve his trinket.

................................

..................

.........

The above is not how this went down, but it's one of the many possible scenarios.

You may blame the architects, the landowners and the authorities but, eventually, it's your responsibility as a parent to take care of your child. Cars of various brands have different safety features, but ultimately it's your driving that makes a difference, and it's true in the case of a hosue or an apartment: it's the way you run your house-hold and educate your child or spouse about safety that makes the difference.

I'm not saying architects and authorities aren't responsible, we are. But we can not guarantee prevention (except in the case of fixed, un-openable windows.) The code says window sill should be 110 CM above finished ground level, and that window handles should be beyond children's reach. But that's just a theory. Children are very inventive and creative when it comes to bypassing problems. What I'm trying to say is, height alone won't prevent your child from jumping (accidentally or by a delusion). You need to make sure he or she understands the dangers. You need to make him NOT want to open the window or lean out of it.

My mom tells me that she once caught me when I was two and a half years old standing on mid-section of your balcony's railing (we lived on the fourth floor), arms spread to the side and shouting "Jonkaaaar!". Jonkar, like Iron Man and Grendizer, were all cartoon characters with the supernatural ability to fly.

One more thing that may have been missed in the controversy: 50% of children still die due to jumps from 4 and 5 floors height. In other words, once you go above the fifth floor, the odds are more or less the same, whether you're on the seventeenth or the seventieth floor.

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P.S.: The title refers to the act of defenestration, which apparently was a popular phenomenon in Europe centuries ago. Especially as an act of a political retribution (throwing a corrupt nobility or a feudal leader out of a window of a high palace, occasionally to be plucked and finished off by angry mobs surrounding the palace)........ I could think of a few acts of defenestration that I would like to see happening myself.

Under My Olive Tree

2011-11-08T16:02:00.004+04:00

The olive harvest season falls on the months of October and November. The exact timing of harvest varies from one region to another, and from one kind of olive trees to another. And it also depends on the convictions and personal preferences of the farmer or the landowner. Generally speaking, it’s best to pick the olives right before they drop out of ripeness and boredom.

At any rate, when it is decided to relieve the tree of its consignment of green and darkish oval fruits, a tarpaulin sheet will be spread underneath it, and then you either swat the branches with sticks to hasten the fall, or climb on a step-ladder and pick at the olives one by one and fling them downward. Whether to use sticks or human hands is determined by the availability of manpower and the nature of the olives themselves (e.g. are they heavy and ripe and ready to drop at the tinniest flick?) When the tree finally parts company with its crop, the tarp will be sifted through to weed out the twigs and other undesirable objects. The load of olives will then be funneled into sacks or pails, and then it will either be sold raw or fermented for breakfast or processed into oil.

I never fully figured out why an olive branch has become a symbol of peace. It has indeed been a symbol of peace and glory for a long, long time (since the ancient Greek). But it is not clear to me why or how it’d become so. I suspect it’s because olive trees live long, and they age well. They age beautifully and gracefully. In fact, ‘old age’ of an olive tree as perceived by mortal humans is never its actual state of aging. The olive tree that my grandfather had planted when he was young feels old to me, but it might just be in its prime years. You'd think a tree that had witnessed WWII and survived the severe freeze of '72 and a partial fire in '82 would look old and withered. But no, that's not the case. That's not the case at all.

The best time to harvest olive is between sunrise and mid-day. Something that has to do with photosynthesis and other chemical ingredients that make the slow circular trip between the leaves, the roots and the fruits. And, obviously, you need good light to do the work since autumn skies are overcast and it gets dark early.

An owner of a land that has two to three hundred olive trees can never handle the harvest by himself and his family alone. So he or she will have to hire pickers from the nearest town. Or maybe from a far-away town. Whoever is cheaper, faster and more hard-working. Men and women of various ages and marital statuses will answer the call. And since it’s not always possible to commute back to where they come from, the pickers will occasionally stay in temporary tents or shacks or whatever available within the vicinity of the land.

For many young men and women, the harvest season is the chance to see and be seen. There’s something novel and fresh about the harvest, about the regenerative power of nature and the freshness of the crop. There’s anxiety and anticipation. Always a surprise lurking around the corner: a tree could yield more than it’s expected; the girl whom you had met the last season has now grown into a beautiful young woman. The harvest season is an opportunity for networking and a source of stories for generations to come. No wonder that many folk songs are rife with references to it and its festivities.

Who owns an olive tree? Or let us put the question this way: who is morally entitled to claim an olive tree? The man who owns the land or the man who grooms and prunes it? The man who plant the sapling or the man who applies the pesticides? The mule that twos the water tank to irrigate it, or the family that picks its fruits? The question is not even framed in economic terms, it's just as simple as this: who has the most intimate relationship with an olive tree?

The answer is: nobody.

Or everybody, equally.

Syria has the fifth largest number of olive trees worldwide. Syria is currently bleeding, but it will survive. It will survive and live to 'age' gracefully and gloriously. Syria is not owned by one man; under its branches of peace and glory, there is a place for everybody.

Well....?

2011-11-02T17:19:00.000+04:00

Kindly leave your answer in the comments.

A Perspective From The Graveyard

2011-10-20T12:20:00.002+04:00

We stood around with our eyes fixed on the slight bump in the dirt before us. My colleague was wearing a white dish-dash with blotches of mud on it, evidently from the burial process that took place a few minutes ago. We had lost our way from the mosque to the graveyard and were a bit late. The look of utter devastation on my colleague’s face was nevertheless unabated. He was an only son. His father was slightly older than fifty-four years when a brain stroke took his life the night before.

On the way to the graveyard, while we were still struggling with GPS and crude, shouted directions from passer-bys, my other colleague, who is also an only son, told me to imagine how difficult it would be. Being the only son, losing your father, your sole role-model and life-guide, and becoming a de-facto patriarch of the family yourself. How absolutely life-shattering. I thought about it for a minute. I told him if you keep thinking about it, you’re going to suffer twice. Once through the worry and another (probably) through the real event, God forbids. And it’s not going to make it any easier.

There’s no rehearsal for grief.

Or is there?

It takes a year for the soft tissues of a body buried underground to decompose*, while the dry remains may persist for a hundred years. A friend told me that psychological studies showed that a family could take up to five years to regain balance after the loss of the patriarch. My other colleague (the one who can’t read GPS) got philosophical and said that death puts life into perspective. That we live, work hard, marry, make babies, make them grow and then die on them. I said, well, that’s life. It’s a cycle. Decomposition and regeneration. And we, human beings, are making more babies than ever. There’s more life on earth than death than ever before…. None of that will give you comfort when the big one hits. But that’s the reality. We may have different beliefs about what happens in the unknowable strata beyond death, but we all agree that life- with its cycle, bio-degradability, and renewability- will go on.

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*Interestingly, the prostrate gland in a male body is the last soft organ to go. I don’t know why this fact gives me comfort, but it does.

Writer's Block

2011-10-17T23:46:00.002+04:00

Behold the writer's block, its cementitious make-up and rough surface. Its weight, the cuboidal shape and the volume it occupies. Just what makes this bloody block so damn heavy to move or to nudge, to smash with a head-butt like a true Korean warrior? Is it stationary? Does it move? Or does it just rotate acrobatically in silent space around a random axis?

Let's see, on one surface - and this object is versatile it doesn't know up from down or right from left- on that first observable surface play images of your daily concerns; the appointments you need to catch, the chores you need to attend to, the dreaded visit to the dentists, the degenerates on the road. They all play out on this surface, like a movie projector. Every time you turn away from the moving picture, it changes lights and color and forces you to look back at it again. Your jaw open wide as if by surgical claws, the dentist smiling ominously as he moves in to drill….

… on the next rectangular face, there stands your to-do list at work. Your career aspirations. The long queue of disgruntled clients. The visage of your unpleasant colleague stares at you from one corner, while the monotony of the three hours meeting plays hop-scotch on a grid roughly drawn by chalk on the other.

(Let's skip the next three faces. Lots of unsavory stuff in there.)

There's nothing but her on the last surface. She stands there, fully clothed and utterly unperturbed. The cuboid here seems to change structure; it's gelatinous, rubbery and its surfaces gain a three-dimensional vividness. The curves get moist and slippery … and the smell, an olfactory wonder. You try to avert your gaze, to shield your eyes, plug your ears and hold your breath. No avail. The holographic cocoon engulfs you like fate. It's not even an object or a part of an object anymore. This part of the block is the anti-matter. It's the black hole of your energies. If a writer's block is an idea block, as some suggest, then how could you write anything but the ideas that this image stirs in your mind? How could you fight a thought so compelling, so riveting and so damn dominant?

The answer is simple: you just can't.

You embrace it and move on.

Love in the eye of a wind turbine

2011-10-01T22:16:00.002+04:00

Love in the eye of a wind turbine

The moments twirl
with a constant puzzle
waiting for the stars
to be aligned
Your hair is mussed
with the flow of time
and our gusts of passion
here, intertwined
Cartwheeling sundials
and their shadows on this
wall, of mine
The struggle for where
to draw the line
And the moment that I
drank your wine
from the grapes of your
finest vine

Love in the eye of a wind turbine

Flawed humans stand exposed
with their flawed logic,
erotic curiosity
To err is human
To err and enjoy it, is,
divine

To err is human
and humans we are
we love to err
and we err to love
we do it on impulse
and we do it by, design

I swear by the neatness
of your emotions
The regalia of innocence
and the tyranny of values,
sublime

I pledge allegiance to the aroma
that wafts from the poetry of your
rhymes
Your stunning bravado
and the shiver that runs
down your spine
All came tumbling
on a night of an earnest bonding
The night you told me
that your secret, is me
and it's mine
The night you taught me
Lip-reading for the blind

Love in the eye of a wind turbine

2011-09-28T19:26:00.001+04:00

"...What actors know about emotions is that they come in pairs, often in direct opposition to each other. That's what it is to be conflicted. We want what we should not want and we know it. We desire that which is dangerous or forbidden and might cause us to suffer. We fear success, embrace failure. We strive to be independent, longing at the same time to surrender to a burning passion. We hold ourselves aloof from the people we need and seek the approval of those who have no use for us...."

- Valerie Martin, "The Confessions of Edward Day".

In the quest for a song...

2011-09-26T16:44:00.002+04:00

There are places only books can take you. The same is true for music. Sometimes it happens in public, I'd be doing something mundane (like eating or smoking), or slightly intellectually stimulating (like reading fiction): and all of a sudden there approaches a feeling of coziness, warmth and even euphoria. And, invariably, I'd find it's a piece of music playing in the background.

The last time this happened, I leapt out of my seat, approached the cafe manager, who looked at my (unusually) excited approach with apprehension.

'What's that song? Do you know the name of that song?'

He moved across the counter to where his vaio laptop was pumping music into the sound system.

He shook the mouse and motioned for me to come around. I did, and we both looked on. The name of the tune as shown on the player was a generic 'Track no. X'. I thanked him and walked back to my seat, slightly annoyed that my out-of-character act didn't yield results.

I'd heard of Shazam before, rhe music recognition app (application). I wondered if it worked for Arabic songs as well (or non-English songs). I downloaded it anyway. My plan was to wait for the song to come up on the sound system again (I was too embarrassed to request the song specifically), and then hold the phone to the speakers (high on the ceiling), and wait for technology to do its wonders.

Out of sheer curiously, I'd tested Shazam a few times on the way to the cafe and found, to my pleasant surprise, that it could recognize Arabic songs. However, after a few trials, it asked me for a paid subscription to continue to enjoy the service bla bla bla. Upon which my immediate reaction was to delete it.

When I got back home, I was determined to find the song by hook or crook. I spent an hour online, during which I'd listened to not less than 30 songs on youtube and rummaged through countless lyrics and play-lists, relying on bits and pieces of words I could extricate, with difficulty, from memory. Lo and behold, it's there:

Poem

2011-09-21T15:24:00.001+04:00

The aftertaste of lukewarm coffee
and the looming doom
Tomorrow is a vacant bungalow
on the lake of endless gloom
A variable camouflaged from us
By a hundred spikes of denial
A camera slung on slumped shoulders
The crooked smile of the knowing
An expose for the rascals
And candle lit basilica, with depth
And the way you learn to hedge your bets
With each passing step

There's comfort in knowing that you care
There's lust in the way you long to share
You busy yourself with details
The room is stuffy, dark and bare
And the elephant that broods, in the corner, there
Quarantined in your hope of escape
Of clemency
Of repair

A scientist puzzles
over the invisible,
the unobservable,
The magnetic pull
Copious notes are made,
for posterity: beware!
And the journal of passion
With its wet periodicals,
and juicy scoops,
And love affairs

A flight across the gulf
Will get you, there
A border run
Despite the guards
for those, who dare.
And I simmer, here
Like a coiled spring
Waiting for the sign
the clue, the hint
That the road ahead
is bright, and clear
That all you wished for
is present, here.

Postcard From Heaven

2011-09-14T00:48:00.003+04:00

A post card.... A window into the illusory afterlife that was designed by man to appeal to his delectations: women and an endless supply of wine. The tempting routes and inviting door bells. The winding alleyways, threading ancient buildings, descending ever so slightly unto a sea of deep azure in the far distance. The olive trees and the easy chairs by side walk cafés. Where did I see this before? I look for telltales of location, for a piece of solid memory. Here is serenity that could only mean a long history of agitation. Here is a calm that reflects a heritage of injustice and pain. Here lies the beauty of the goddess with the raised elbows, porcelain hands keeping hair in place. Like a migratory bird in transcontinental flight, wings spread against the winds, crossing thousands of miles in a posture of calm and indifference.

Behold the scenery as it unfolds, my friend. Here’s a peek of the brown eyes that snubbed snobbery and socialized with god’s apostles. Here’s the familiar look of promise that dragged your soul through the mud of time and the sludge of heartbreak. Here are the old scabs, blossoming anew. And your recidivism at the matters of the heart. “You are the repeater“, these two glimmers of brown gloss are telling you, “You are a repeater, you just never learn”. Here’s the barb wires and partition lines. Here’s the search for a homeland you found in the droopy eyes of a refugee. Here’s your hometown, with no respite for the weary, no break from the searing pain. The leftover of joy you were never able to collect, the hairpins discarded on a dance floor. And the volcanic ash that settled over the rich terrain and smudged your judgment and blurred the postmortem. Here is uncertainty and its derivatives. Here, my friend, is a land where the only thing you dread more than loneliness is companionship.

Those who paid no attention to Noah’s arc, those who hadn’t heeded his warnings, are no longer with us. The rising waters and its challenge held more promise for them than the safety of the ship. Those who couldn’t read the signs, or distinguish the shifting colors of the macadam on the way to wasteland, they are no longer with us. But we envy them nonetheless. They just shuffled along happily. Those who couldn’t read the writing on the wall, couldn’t decipher the text nor interpret the murals, are probably the happier for it.

For now, you continue to indulge in your selfish dance of catharsis. You try to emulate the arrogance of those who pick wild flowers for the sole purpose of depriving the sun of their beauty. You wish you could own the gloss of that postcard, morph it into an energy of your liking and convenience. But alas, unlike your fantasies, those colors are real, and they shall remain beyond your grasp for as long as you dared them to come close.

Summer Confession

2011-07-28T17:53:00.002+04:00

If summers could talk, they would tell stories of horror. It is just the nature of things that people are more transparent and sharing in the summer. They are less mindful of their private space and more audacious in accommodating the closeness of others. It makes an economic sense, in the sizzling season, for people to press close together in the few places that are climate-controlled.

The malls, the grocery store, the cafes.

The Hotel rooms.

The massage parlors.

Summer is an affront to my hygiene. I saw a spit bobbing on the surface of the pool the other day. I had just finished a lap and was slightly out of breath, and as I came up for air, I saw the enormous stain floating like an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. No amount of self-restraint and indifference would keep that image away. Even as I turned my head and looked straight ahead, at a point somewhere on the other bank of the pool, the archipelago of saliva kept dancing on the periphery of my vision. Any serious swimmer will tell you that a certain amount of pool water will make its way into your ears, nose and mouth. I couldn’t entertain the thought of diving back into the water without concluding the matter. This outrage needed a culprit. I yanked my eyes off the spot on the other side and looked at my companions in the pool. There was the usual assortment of multi-colored silly children splashing around and speaking to each other in a corny American accent. There was a German mother with freckled shoulders playing with her baby. There was a guy ogling at the mother with a rapist grin. I couldn’t know what was there to ogle at; even her lavish breasts were invisible under the water. But the balding, swarthy guy with flaps of fat and a potbelly didn’t seem to be doing anything at all but look at the woman. I could imagine the scene: the bald tourist from a neighboring country finishing off his heavy dinner of rice and lamb and ambling down to the pool to caress his penis below the water. At one point his throat- which no doubt played host to more left over food than the MOE food court trash bin – needed clearing. And off came the environmental disaster.

I take off my polyester shirt and walk the short passage to my favorite part of the ‘Health’ Club. Here at the steam room you can literally relax despite yourself. No amount of resistance will stand in the face of hot clouds billowing from the steam muzzles. The stone bench is narrower than what is comfortable for a person to lie down, and towels aren’t allowed inside. So I tuck my spongy rubberic flip-flop under my head and lay, supine, waiting for the crushing wave of nausea. It usually hits after a couple of minutes. My hearts starts beating audibly; my breath diminishes to the point of indistinctive heaving and receding of the ribcage. None of your senses is strong enough to harness the idle time and keep you distracted from this battle. Your eyes are focused on the ceiling of white acrylic sheets, dripping with condensed steam. Millions of particles of off-white vapor swarm in your vision. At first, you hear nothing but the squeal of gas as it emerges from the pressurized pipes unto the air, but after a while (how long you aren’t sure), you being to hear your heartbeat. It is distinctive and unique in rhythm. Not hurried, nor panicky. It is just loud. Your heart is hard at work, like the workman with the jackhammer, concentrating at the task at hand and oblivious to the inconveniences he’s wrecking all around him. Your heart needs to work overtime to deliver blood to the extremities that are expected to help you flee the scene. A dose of low-grade adrenalin, administered with care and steadiness. You hear your heartbeats, and it is like no other sound you had ever heard, it drowns out all other audio stimuli in the surroundings. The smell? Well, your sense of smelling is crushed with the first inhalation of steam. The first intake is the toughest one. It is a balancing act between the desire to fill your lungs with warmth and the urge to cough. There’s no greater inconvenience at the face of the earth than a trapped cough. And it’s all you get to have at first inhalation, a chough coiled at the center of your being, and you feel the urge to give it all you want, to hawk, to jump. And yet, you can’t. There is no enough dry friction inside to give it the necessary spark. You’re at the mercy of this heavy, fluid-clogged breathing. You want to reach out to the area in crisis and wipe it clean with a white cloth rag, watch the sooty dirt accumulate on it. For you know how it is for a smoker. It is a coal mine down there.

While you lie down on your back, with your palms turned up in resistance of imaginary pressure, exerted by the sweat and the dehydration, you’re on the verge of losing consciousness. You are borderline insane with heat. In your mind eye you see a tormentor with a smirk on his face, watching through a one way mirror, turning up the heat, shouting obscenities through loudspeakers, demanding answers to short-phrased questions: Who are you with? Where were you last Friday?… and in your mind eye, you’re searching for an alibi. You envisage various scenarios in which you fall asleep or lose consciousness and die of dehydration. But then you remember being told once that it is impossible for a human being to sleep in the supine position. You remember that this was the reason you had adopted this posture to begin with. Your tactile sense is obliterated; the tips of your fingers are blistered like boiled squids. You wipe the face of your wrest watch and check the time, you had only been here ten minutes, but you can’t take it anymore. You are not supposed to take it anymore. It is amazing how, at times of hard labor, the sense of self tend to morph into the third person. The struggle you are being subjected to isn’t yours, and the panting look of defeat, which greets you when you glance at the reflection in the glass door, isn’t yours. He, the person who took off my shirt fifteen minutes ago, lowers his feet to the floor and walks gingerly out of the steam room. He inhales frantically, pushes the door to the lavatory and looks at me in the mirror above the sink. What he sees is a study in paradox, a relaxed face with healthy-looking ruddy skin. Calm eyes. Frightened nose. And as the everyday perception of reality begin to circulate in my bloodstream, I feel the trapped cough once again. I could no longer take the clump of foreign substance in my steam-rolled windpipes. I bend over the sink and set off an artillery projectile that lands at the white porcelain with multiple smacks. I’ve collected all the health benefits I was promised from the chamber of torture: Relaxation, Healthy Skin, Rejuvenated Respiratory System.

And I managed to do it without spitting in the pool.

Summer Solstice

2011-07-08T23:20:00.005+04:00

Dear long-forgotten lady,

There is an odd legend in my hometown that involves hot bath water and floor drains. It says that you should always recite a certain incantation to dispel the evil spirits that reside inside the drainpipes of a bathtub before you turn on the hot water tap. If you don’t, the legend dictates; the devils will get burns and eventually get even with you in ways you couldn’t predict or imagine.

Although not particularly superstitious, it used to frighten me that I hadn’t been observing this ritual when I was younger. And sometimes I’d wonder if semen could have acted as an extenuating agent when it got mixed up with hot water. I’d wonder if the devils hovering in the pipes would have felt less furious had the hot water surging at them been mixed with that viscous material. Maybe the female devil is used to giving the male devil a blowjob and so is accustomed to the taste and the thickness of the fluid. Maybe they are grateful after all.

I sincerely apologize for having started off on that disgusting note. If you are still reading, then you must be at a loss by now as to why I’d mention such a personal and vulgar thing to you in the first contact since we’ve last seen each other, years ago.

Think of your private secrets as a collection of expensive objects on display in in your own living room. Only a few select people are allowed to visit and examine them. With the passage of time and the accumulation of dust, however, these objects gradually turn into artifacts, and these artifacts are moved to public museums. That is when they become old and innocuous memories, ‘declassified’, and it is a source of no shame or embarrassment to have them seen by strangers.

So, allow me to show you something… This way please. There’s an interesting piece on showcase in that hall up ahead. Yes, here. Let me just open the door. Here you go.

Remember that hot day in May, the year before the year we were due to graduate? You probably don’t, but if you look closely here at the display, you will see it crisp and clear. I was leaning against the dwarf wall that stood at the end of the giant steps that lead to the main entrance of our college. There were probably a hundred people in the miniature paved plaza that stretched from the entrance to the outer fence. I was waiting for a friend to come out of the crowded copy center right next to the entrance. And although the huge concrete canopy provided a shade against the robust mid-day sun, the weather wasn’t what you would call pleasant. You know the period; between the middle of May and summer solstice, where the air is laden with heat and late pollen and faint sweat. It is a period when people are at the peak of their sexual tension and confusion. The shifting of seasons, scurrying of clouds, migratory birds and approaching exams; all these factors unite to bolster the need for extracurricular copulation.

As I stood there, slightly annoyed, waiting for the friend to finish his business, I did a casual scan of my surroundings. It didn’t take long before my annoyance dissipated. You were with the usual group of friends. Some of whom sat side by side on one of the giant steps. You and someone else I didn’t recognize stood with your backs to me, facing them. Wearing tight jeans and a low-cut blouse and a pair of flat shoes, you had your left foot on a higher step to support the bundle of books you were lugging on a knee, while your right leg stood a little erect with the tension of probing your lovely figure.

Given the stance, I could trace the outline of your body dipping in and out of clothes, all the way from the nape of your neck to your ankle. Despite the tentativeness of the situation and the crowd and the noise, I could do nothing but stare. At one point, you had to bend forward and spread a roll of tracing paper on the contiguous laps of your buddies, to show them a sketch or a detail or something…

At that moment, the sweatiness and jostling of the scene experienced an immediate physical shift, revealing a layer of calm. The slight inclination of the torso, albeit graceful and vaguely immature, caused a cut in the logical sequence of the day, shifting its course towards something more compelling than revising for exams or worrying about grades. As I stood there, I felt a tug at my temples, as if a magnetic field had just completed a three-dimensional inventory of the piece of art before me, and was now telepathically transmitting it to my mind. I was motionless. Frozen in place. No sensory stimulation of any kind could pry my attention from the image I was witnessing. Knowing it’s going to haunt me for a long time to come.

Ever since that day, despite the number of women I’ve been with and the depth and expansiveness of my porn viewing: I still think of the hologramic representation of your bottom as the ultimate sexual outrage. I’d carry that image around like a shield, a proof of how delicate yet powerful it all is. I’d slip it out of its holder when I needed it the most, primarily in the shower. At other times I’d just bask in the knowledge of knowing it’s there somewhere, waiting to be invoked at a moment notice.

Recently, that image has undergone an imperceptible transformation: a new glint, a revived vividness, has been added to its glossy lamination. No doubt caused by the diametrically opposed views you and I have on crucial ethical and political issues. Like the contrast modifier of a photo-editing program, the differing views provide depth and shadows and intensity and passion to that image…As if its mere existence proves one’s point of view completely right, and the other’s completely off the mark.

But please… don’t get me wrong: this is not a situation where an oriental guy is lacking in debate skills and instead relying on the misogynistic idea that all it takes for a man to be correct is having a penis. That all it takes for my opinion to trump yours is an erection. No, this is something completely different. If you could analyze that image in a lab, if you could explain it to an artist and tell him to dream up an interpretation, he would draw an apple and a mushroom; an apple because the poles are so attracted they bore in the skin and tissue to get closer to each other; and a mushroom because of its similarity to the shape of a penis helmet.

Do you know why a penis helmet has evolved into its current shape? Science has it that those with the most enlarged penis tips among our ancestors were able to procreate more successfully, because the helmet helped expunge semen (left over from competing males) off the cervixes of the intended females, and gave their own sperm the advantage. And so this helmet shape had evolved to perfection throughout the history of man. Did you ever notice that helmets worn by soldiers are different than those worn by construction professionals? The ones proudly donned by army men are more like the helmet of a penis than the regular semi-spherical fiberglass bowl worn by engineers. Next time you turn on the TV and watch soldiers in action, you are bound to see some helmets. I urge you to pay attention to the form and circularity of them. No doubt the military helmet had undergone an evolution of its own, to improve competitiveness, to increase their performance against foes and rivals.

What connects drainpipe devils to army helmets or college encounters to political crises? I have no idea. I sometimes feel overwhelmed with unsolicited thoughts. Science argues that the feeling of helplessness tend to make human beings more prone to dot-connection and pattern recognition. That could probably be it. But no man is an island; my confusions are but the residual failures of my society to reconcile its suppressed sexuality with its political ambitions. The grind of time is too impatient to give each one of us a time slot to explain his unabridged point of view. The image contrast gets sharper and sharper until it boils down to a uni-color portray. If you want to stay alive and relevant, you have to choose to be either the color of the background or the color of the drawing, nothing else. The pressure of needing a release doesn’t impart one with the luxury of masturbating at leisure; the jerks must be quick and furtive. The muzzle velocity of ejaculate is 45 KM per hour, can hardly compete with that of the gun wielded by a helmeted man. I can’t tell whether this is a degeneration of the world as we know it or just an inevitable phase of transition. I need more time to think about this, but unfortunately, summer is not the season for deep thinking.

I hope you enjoyed this quick visit to my museum. There will be more exhibits of intrigue if you decided to come again.

Sincerely yours,

Poetry

2011-04-22T13:32:00.001+04:00

I want to sneak into God's own linen store,
Cut a large piece of cloth,
Soak it in my reserves of joy
And wipe your worries away.

I want to invent a machine,
that could give a sound
to the jazz I hear in my mind,
every time you speak.

I want to put a stethoscope
on my bare ribcage,
make you listen to my heartbeat,
telling a story of how life,
departed the mundane,
and freefell into the unknown.

I want to show you how my face,
my whole existence, light up
when I talk to you.
How you nurture me with therapy
unwittingly,
how you defeat my anxiety,
by merely being you…

I want to make you feel safe,
to never worry about first,
or second or third guesses,
because,
when push comes to shove
I'd take the hit for you.

I want to squash your inhibitions,
play my vantage reel,
my life-time worth,
of captioned reassurances:
That there's nothing to worry about,
in the entire universe,
except the desolation of inaction.

I want to see you in my poetry
tell you about my insanity,
take you for a ride,
on my train of thought,
I want to make you believe in,
my apostasy.
But first, I want to see you, seeing me.
I want you to see me, seeing you,
in an endless loop of clarity.

I want to quantify,
the effervescence of butterflies,
that proliferate in my stomach,
every time I see you smile.
I want to register the miracle,
that is,
the cadence of your voice,
in every conceivable way.
And how you turned my life,
into a bliss of distant Thursdays.

I want to dedicate my words to you
navigate through storms, for you.
share my revelations, with you.
as you share yours, with me.
I want to see the world, through you.
'cause I can't see the world, without you.
And I swear by whatever god
you want me to believe in,
that every word above, is true.

Nothing Else Mattered

2011-04-13T22:52:00.002+04:00

His right arm felt stiff and cold, numb from the elbow down and hurting like hell from there and upward, crushed under the weight of his comatose body. What felt like an early shaft of sunrise blossomed behind his closed eyelids like a nuclear mushroom. His thoughts swam and glided in the distance. He tried to set his arms free. He knew where he was, he thought to himself, as a trace of sobriety pierced the space between his eyes. The heel of his boot was wedged in the corrugated sheet of his pick up truck, where he’d spent the night splayed on the floor. It took all his might to kick himself free.

She rose from her bed, sighed, yawned and moaned softly. She looked at her self in the dresser’s mirror and stretched, her elegant figure dropping a long shadow on a clean carpet. She turned and walked over to the expansive window, slid it open and inhaled. Fresh coffee was brewing downstairs.

He eventually willed him self to sit upright, and squinted scornfully at the horizon. He reached absentmindedly for the flask, felt around the empty box of the pick up truck for it, but found nothing. At that moment, his shoulders sagged as it hit him in the stomach; the realization of what he'd wanted to do this morning. The enormity and the gravity of it.

She showered and then dressed casually, in jeans and a light shirt. Walked down to the kitchen and sat across the table from her silent mother. Smiles and nods were exchanged before the two of them got busy having their breakfast. She soon pushed back her chair, stood up, strapped the backpack on her young shoulders and walked out of the house with a bounce in her step.

He was pushing fifty years of age, a man of no talent and no discernible assets. He lived out of his truck, ate scarcely and showered even less. As he shuffled along the side walk, arthritis and hangover keeping his stride clumsy and precarious, his thoughts shifted to her. He’ll see her soon, but he still had no idea how she’d react to seeing him. As he approached the school premises, he became more and more anxious. Yes, he was dirty and homeless, but he wasn’t stupid. He was totally aware of his deteriorating position on the social scale. He shouldn’t be anywhere near a school for middle class kids who, quite frankly, dreaded the sight of him.

She got on the bus and threw the customary greetings to the driver and her classmates. She drew the usual stares from the boys as she walked down the aisle. She was, quite frankly, the most gorgeous girl in town. And, judging by the incessant smile on her face, her seventeen years of life have certainly been full of happiness and domestic bliss. But looks are deceptive, and as she sat and stared out of the window, a wave of grief washed over her. She swallowed hard and blinked twice but did not see tears.

He finally stationed himself across the street from the school gates. The view was almost blocked by the sizable cars of parents dropping off their children. He began rocking on his feet, trying to keep warm, avoiding eye contact with the parents. He tried to look invisible, tried to hide his shame and his uneasiness; although he very much wanted to see her, he couldn’t bring himself to deal with her rejection - if she rejected him. But even then, who could blame her? The furtive glances of disgust emanating from the young and the grown-ups across the road told him no one would blame her. He grimaced and cocked his head, in time to see a yellow object moving closer.

The yellow bus came to a halt and the doors swung open. In a peculiar mix of laziness and energetic chaos, the kids began to disembark. She stood up and pushed slowly along as her friends giggled and pinched each other and moved at their own pace. She stepped down on the cement tiles and turned to move in the general direction of the school. She was thinking of dropping her backpack on the floor (for a final inspection of the books) when she thought she heard someone calling her name. It was almost a whisper, a whimper from times bygone. She stopped, thumb hooked under the strap of her backpack, and there it was again: her name intoned by a voice she was quite familiar with, albeit more hoarse that she remembered. She turned on her heel and finally dropped her bag with a thud, book inspection the last thing on her mind.

“Sara!”
“Daddy!”

She cried as she dashed across the street and into his arms. Yes, he was a useless alcoholic who couldn’t keep a job. Yes, he was filthy and his clothes didn’t see the Laundromat in years. Yes, he’d failed her and left her under the care of her struggling, mute mother. Yes, his absence from her life was a major source of melancholy to her and something that her mean classmates thought was worthy of derision and ridicule.

And yet at that moment, at that very moment, it was as if history and its momentous burdens were suspended just so he could enjoy seeing his daughter and revel in her youth and innocence.

At that moment, nothing else mattered.

Silver Lining

2011-04-02T19:43:00.000+04:00

He looks around, eyes quickly scanning faces contoured with emotions: the subsided fear, the standard issue paranoia, all released in rivulets through chocked throats and salt-less tears. Decades long walls of conventional wisdom are being shattered around him. A group of pleading faces tilted upward in an intent anticipation, impromptu supplications get louder and more personal. Glass shatter in the distance, heavy clanks of metal on metal. Shouts of conflicting nature, some urging caution and others beefing up morale.

The air is foggy with chemicals, and some bend at the waist to deflate its impact. But the fogginess of the air couldn’t cloud the clarity of the purpose. You want something, young man, you gotta go get it. You gotta earn it. You gotta run the track of steeplechasers drawn up by those whose job is to discourage and demoralize. But plans can’t be re-drawn out here on the blacktop; they can only be scrapped and defeated. You plug in to the collective energy and you are in. You are in on the big thing. The big thing whose momentous bigness could go either way, and you know there’s no hedging your bet once your soles hit the blacktop.

A comrade falls, and is carried along by all four as a few retreat. There’s anger now, a fury uncoiling in the guts and trapped in the mouth. The unfairness of this unfair equation aggravates it; the way injustice gets multiplied and scattered-shot into the crowds aggravates it. And the eyes play visual tricks on him. He sees the incandescent light of safe exit, tastes the hot scent of impending change, and wonders whether it could be made into tangibles, all this sensory stimulation. This uncontrolled upheaval of raw forces meeting rubber-stamp heavy-handedness. All hands are going to be heavy from hereon, he realizes. Heavy and callused and uncompromising.

The youth around him regroup now, and the supplications grow more personal and more urgent. There’s holiness to this scene, a hallowed aura of progressive developments and shifting potential. Like a choir in a church, in sync with the antimatter of the universe and the power that could crack codes and deliver messages of supreme importance. And here they are, making themselves heard, making a riposte to the spiel. Here is the counter-offer. Here’s upping the ante with no auctioneering caution. The grieve will come later, mourning the loss will come later. But right now, there’s no stopping the avalanche of repressed grievances.

And in the thick of it all, in the midst of mutual distrust and conspiratorial accusations, in the epicenter of this sheer combativeness and fatal dance-off; he wonders. He wonders if cooler heads will prevail. He wonders if there’s a nuanced formula, if this labor could give birth to a renewed reality, to a rejuvenated novelty. Could it be eventually realized that things can’t go on the way they are? That the status quo is untenable? Could an opportunity be detected in the cacophony of tumbling events? Could minds transcend the personal and get down to the core idea of who we are and where we’re headed? For even if all the characters stuck to the script, even if parties involved did their bit and pretended that their positions are validated, history won’t lie. History is the grandest reformer of them all. History will do its corrections and its revisions, until all lenses are true and aligned.

History is what we’ll become, and it’s our choice on which side of it we want to be.

Is Islam the Problem?

2011-03-07T12:59:00.004+04:00

Nick Kristof wrote a column for the New York Times in which he asked: “is Islam the problem?”

The ‘problem’ he’s referring to is a reference to the collective maladies of the Arab/Muslim world: stifled education, poor health care, antiquated infra-structure, economical underdevelopment, corruption, stagnating culture ..etc..

And despite the obvious fact that the region isn’t a monolith (evident by the presence of economically developed cities and regions especially in the Arab Gulf, and the ethnic diversity of the Levant and Northern Africa), the Arab speaking world share a good amount of symptoms that indicate a common root cause.

Furthermore, I believe the non-Arab Muslims do not share a large chunk of these problems with us. One look at how far Malaysia have come since their independence is enough proof. If Islam was the problem, then American Muslims would be on average earning less (and of a less education) than their fellow citizens, but numbers show the opposite: American Muslims are on average more educated and earn more money.

Back to Kristof’s article: There has been a wave of disapproving comments about the title and the content of his column. Accusations of racism and Islamophobia have been directed at Nick for his choice of words and phrases like “backwardness” and “psychological problems”…etc

I honestly do not know whether Kristof is racist or not, and one wouldn’t care if Kristof was racist or not if Kristof wasn’t an influential columnist (like his colleague, Tom Friedman) in the United States. And one would further not care about the impact of a racist or biased influential columnist in the United States if Arabs had put their act together and had their independent, self-evident representation. You see: the mere point that Nicholas Kristof, Thomas Friedman et al have to be politically correct and fair to us in order for us not to be misjudged and mistreated in this world proves a point Kristof was trying to make: that there is a problem.

It is also notable that whenever we want to prove Nick (or anyone) a bigot, we’d ask: would he dare say ‘backward’ about Africa? ….

An interesting choice, this Africa. We know it is because Africa is probably about the only place left in the world that is more backward than we are. (yes, I said it: Africa is backward. Check the global average life span if you don’t believe me)….

But what are we gonna do when we’ll get overrun by Africa as well?

Who are we going to cite as the region that Nick Kristof wouldn’t dare point at and describe as backward?

Update -1-:

Perhaps a great deal of hesitation and rejection of the likes of articles like Nicholas Kristof's is because of this: the underdevelopment and lack of progress in the Arab world have always been a justification co-opted by the racist Zionist Entity (aka 'Israel') in order to kill, maim and subjugate Palestinians at large and with impunity. Let us be clear about this: no matter how backward, primitive, ignorant, unproductive or regressive a population is, its individuals deserve the same human rights (individually and collectively as a nation entitled to its right of determination and national aspirations) as everybody.

"Death toll on Dubai's roads falls by a third".... How?

2011-03-02T11:05:00.003+04:00

This article in The National highlights the sharp drop of road fatalities in Dubai last year. 33 % drop is very significant (it’s phenomenal, in fact), and it deserves a closer examination. Commendable efforts by the RTA notwithstanding, such a sharp fall can’t be attributed to them alone (although one is so tempted……Not). Other than what is mentioned in the article, there are elements and variables that had come together to contribute to this drop. I will try here to think of some of them:

1- The article doesn’t distinguish between pedestrian accidents and vehicles' collision accidents. The former has been a tragic source of death in recent years, especially on highways like SZR. These would have been significantly reduced last year due to the opening of many pedestrian crossings over SZR (as part of metro stations…)
2- This is hard to quantify: but reduction in construction activities all over the place is also a factor. The article does refer to completion of road works and the eradication of spots that were ambiguous and confusing to drivers. But there’s something else: building construction too had slowed down, which meant less number of hurried concrete mixers or heavy equipments on the roads. Also, building contractors are entitled by law to occupy part of the road when they need to carry out major concreting or receive delivery of big construction parts. This is perfectly legal and any contractor can arrange it with a single application to Dubai Municipality (& Dubai Police, I think). Of course, they ought to observe safety procedures, and it’s hard to imagine how the cordoning of a lane at the side of road could lead to fatalities. However, one could think of domino effect and traffic botheration spilling from one place to another and worsening the general mood.
3- Speaking of moods: less traffic doesn’t only mean statistically less chances of cars colliding with each other. Getting stuck in traffic for hours could lead to high levels of stress and poor judgment. (on the other hand, one could argue that lax driving conditions could lead to carelessness…etc)
4- Also related to construction: there were several major accidents involving buses of construction workers in the last few years. One could assume that last year's construction schedules were more tolerant of delays, i.e. bus drivers no longer needed to rush like maniacs from camp to site in order to avoid being berated by the foreman. In addition to that; rents for labor camps had fallen and companies can afford to get laborer lodged somewhere near their place of work.
5- Maybe-- just maybe-- women had finally learned how to parallel-park.

Are there other reasons?

P.S. the entire post is written on the premise that the stats issued are legit and aren’t tweaked or interpreted to show a different picture than reality…… They wouldn’t do that, would they?

Friday Night

2011-03-01T16:26:00.002+04:00

Friday night. The time to party and let loose. The time to partake in the most bizarre, unsettling and unlikely of acts. The time to let go of weekday inhibitions and embrace the diverse science of mixology.

The night has an air of anticipation to it, with an underlying aroma of dread. The primal fear of sirens and affidavits. The city braces itself for all sorts of abuse. Here come the out-of-town yobs with their weekend confidence suspended high on a Nissan Patrol, their familiar conceit and shit-eating grins peeking from the sun roof. Here comes the cowed out-of-town family with their dreamy-eyed kids and listing sedan. And beyond the taxonomy of budgets and car models, an armada of taxis scurry around to service those who choose to play it safe. This is the premium of the one-night insurance you’re going to need to hedge your entertainment, in a city where driving under, above, to the right, to the left or anywhere near the influence is unforgivable. And this is the reason why cabbies are in short supply and on short fuse; the loyal, fortnightly customer is inconvenienced by his having to ditch his beloved automobile. And this air of tension and mutual hatred in the confined space of the taxi spells into the streets, in the form of horrid lane discipline and frequent sudden-death brakes. A faint sense of foreboding is in the air, reminiscent of red and blue strobes, radar flashes and hurrying stretchers.

And then there are the women. They toil before the mirror for hours on end, in an excruciating exercise of tunnel crawling; in and out of outfits, from one dress to another. All for the purpose of trying to look unique and stand out. And that what brings women together on a Friday night; their collective standing out by looking more or less the same. The sheer number of copycats and safe imitations and jealous tryouts does it for them, the sheer number of repetitive gestures and the bitch that leads by the example does it for them, the mere jiggling of incredulous hips striding in unison does it for them. This is a cultural mayhem, one that puts women on a pedestal so that we can all look up their skirts, diametrically opposed to the one that puts them in their place so that they will do what they're asked to without quibbles. A 'real man' stands completely unfazed in the midst of it all. The master of seduction is in high demand tonight, for he knows the road map and the lay of the hand. But he's really yearning for a more orderly transition of power and energy, for a less farcical conduct of business, while a legion of unnoticed observants stand to the side, contemplating a series of citizen-arrests.

Back on the road it is a democracy of violations: the bar hoppers are still hopping, a considerable amount of liquor threading their blood system. The out of town goons are imposing a blockade two lanes wide. The hesitant family man is lost and thirsty for directions. The valet queue wags its tail into the road and cause a bottle neck. A hurried working girl squats to pee in the alley, no waist band in sight. The shit-faced masses watch in amusement as the hip-hop dance off hurtles unto the side walk when the clock strikes 3 AM....

Who dares argue with the night? Who dares question the fickleness of its lights and the reliability of its crawlers? Who dares intervene in the intricacy of its darkness?

Everyone lay on their back before they assume their preferable sleeping position. Spread-eagle and submissive, like an air-raid watcher from a bygone era. Watch your incoherent thoughts ricochet off the far end of the universe, divide and collide like a nuclear reaction. Mutate and evolve, propagate and devolve. You shall be operated on by the angles of unconsciousness and the demons of bad digestion. You shall be left to convalesce in a colorless land of muted horror. You shall be awakened to coughing fits, an apocalyptic headache, microscopic tissue and muscle tears and numbness bordering on the paralysis. You shall be left wondering, "what happened?..... What the fuck happened?" But you shall be thankful, for it’s not a cold concrete floor you’ve awakened to. You shall be thankful that unsatisfied bed partners can’t carry out citizen arrests.

You shall be thankful.

Macy Gray and the BDS Movement

2011-01-23T11:43:00.003+04:00

What is it about twitter than makes celebrities and politicians more willing to engage with fans and detractors?

Matt Yglesias gets tens, sometimes hundreds, of comments on each of his posts. He rarely comments on his own comments' section (why should he? he can always follow up with another post). And yet he felt obliged to reply to a comment I'd made a couple of month ago on twitter about his disagreements with another liberal blogger, Glenn Greenwald. He and Glenn, it'd seemed to me, had substantial differences over the US health care debate, not just disagreements over Obama's approach. I got a reply from Matt himself telling me that I was wrong, he and Glenn agree in principle but........

I would have carried on with the conversation if I cared more. But fissures among American liberal bloggers are kind of yawn-ish. So that's that.

I got a note from a friend on twitter last Wednesday, telling me that a certain Macy Gray, an African American singer, is going to be performing in 'Israel' soon. She's been receiving a lot of messages from activists urging her not to go (i.e. to boycott). So she then opened up the discussion on her facebook page, invited fans to tell her whether she Should go or not. I followed the link from the friend and lo and behold, the question had already gathered a thousand replies by then (there are +8500 as of writing this post). I knew it was virtually useless, but I did leave a comment anyway, at least my cyber buddies would see it and it would probably spark a debate (which it did).

I then wondered whether she, Macy Gray, is on twitter or not. A quick search revealed that she is. I checked her timeline (the sequence of her tweets) and it looked like she'd decided to go ahead with the gigs in Israel, and broke the news to her fans on twitter. To tell you the truth, wriggling herself away from these gigs after singing would not have been easy even if she wanted to. There are bonds and financial obligations. And then there are the predatory pro-Israel media. At the slightest whiff of boycott rhetoric, you find them open-jawed and drooling for blood.

What followed was a brief exchange I had with Macy Gray (up to that point I still didn't who she was). Later, after the insomniac Macy went to sleep and our conversation (and plans for a date) died off, I looked her up. Oh man. I may not have known who she was but I certainly knew of this song of hers.

I'm not a star-stricken or a celebrity-worshiping dude. I pay attention to celebrities when they perform well, while they're performing well. Beyond that, my concern for them do not exceed my concern for the well being of the janitor (a bit demeaning to the janitor that he's always a reference point when people speak of something meager, but I digress). Nevertheless, I was told I need to blog about this - the exchange. So here we go:

Macy Gray (to a fellow boycott activist):
"See I'm willing to listen - really listen - but some of you so called boycotters are just assholes."

Dubai Jazz (to Macy Gray):
"Hey, I'm an asshole. A pro-justice asshole!"

Macy Gray to Dubai Jazz:
"That was directed at some really awful, unnecessary. Key word SOME. boycott: taking things out of context."

DJ to MG:
"Every cause has some overly enthusiastic peeps. And boycott worked on south africa, no reason it shouldn't work on israel :)"

MG to DJ:
"i agree."

DJ to MG:
"awww. You're coming to Dubai, right? how about we meet for coffee and talk about it? :)"

MG to DJ:
"I thought you didn't like me. ????"

DJ to MG:
"I still don't like your going to Israel. But that doesn't mean I should stop liking *you*. :)"

MG to DJ:
"hmmm. only thing is - i don't like coffee"

DJ to MG:
"what's your drink of choice? :) We should get you to try the hubbly bubbly (hooka) smoke. You'll love it!!"

MG to DJ:
"ice water with 2 lemon slices. Best drink on the planet. !!"

DJ to MG:
"Wow. That makes you kind of...... affordable (just kidding:))"

(Regarding that last line, I really wanted to tell her it makes her cheap. But that, I reckoned, would have been rude and bad for the cause.)

You see, my fellow BDS activists: You need to engage your subjects of interest and communicate with them as a person before lecturing them about the history of the conflict. You have to understand where they come from. You have to put yourself in the position of someone who had never heard about the conflict before. Imagine someone urging you to boycott the Sri Lankan government for its persecution of the Tamil community. The first reaction you'd have is one of bewilderment and uneasiness. People are by nature averse to controversies and disputes (unless their involvement is calculated to generate no losses). On the other hand, people are also, generally speaking, empathic and have a tendency to stand by the underdog. But the moral terrain has to be clear. Justice delineated. You ought to be empathetic with the person you're trying to win before you expect them to be empathetic with your cause. There's a great temptation to get angry and hurl insults and accuse people of being indifferent to the suffering of others. Offensive language, while it might help you defuse some of *your* anger, is never going to produce tangible results.

But hey, don't get me wrong. I do it too. If a hasbara cunt showed up here, I have no scruples about using the C word.

Lodging a Complaint With Etisalat

2011-01-19T12:45:00.003+04:00

The Internet was disconnected from my mobile phone yesterday, after I forgot to dully charge it with enough credit to allow Etisalat to deduct the subscription fee automatically. The SMS that intimated me of this also provided that my sim card is now pay-as-you-go, run-of-the-mill one like the millions of others around the world. (Curiously, this is one surefire way of canceling an Etisalat service. Don’t pay. Lose connection). Feeling slightly offended by this degradation of status, I summoned the web page of Etisalat and found the particular text that will, by sending it to 1010, renew the subscription.

But first, I had to dully charge my phone with enough Derhams. Which I did.

So I punched the text and SMS number and pressed sent. And waited. And waited. One hour, two hours. I checked my credit and realized that 90 DHs has been deducted upon sending the SMS (although the subscription fee is 49 DHs). Baffling! I called Etisalat blackberry help line, they told me to wait for a couple of more hours, and, if I’d not received a confirmation SMS by then, to call them again.

So I called again after the recommended period elapsed. The gentleman at the other end, to his credit, took the matter seriously and thought about it and asked probing questions. Yes, an SMS has been sent and 90 DHs deducted. No, I don’t know what the problem is. I’ll file a complaint with our IT/Billing department and they’ll call you when it’s fixed. OK?

OK.

OK.

A minute later I received an SMS from Etisalat, not, as I’d hoped, to inform me that the service has been renewed, but to proffer me a complaint number. It was fine, though. It was a development. I’m now armed with a complaint number; an important reinforcement in the bureaucratic battle of getting my complaint on the record.

This morning, almost 18 hours after the complaint was ‘lodged’, I receive a call from the complaints’ guy. Very professional and gentlemanly, despite his insistence on repeating the complaint number, which, I suspect, is meant to help Etisalat, not me, track the problem.

I mean, how many complaints could I be waging at Etisalat at the same time? Right?

Long story short: the complaints' guy asks me whether I’m certain the number I’d sent the SMS to was 1010, asks me to ‘check’ again. I summon the SMS register and it's there, an SMS sent to ‘w0w0’, (the ‘w’ button coincides with the 1 digit on the blackberry keypad), and I tell him so. He says thanks, he’ll call back.

A minute later he calls to tell me that the ‘w’ in the number I’d sent the SMS to wasn’t interpreted as ‘1’ but as ‘9’ (as is the case with the classic telephone keypads). He must be wrong, I respond, because that is the way I dial all my numbers: I don’t bother with pressing ‘alt’ before hitting the digit, the blackberry interprets the letter as the digit it’s cohabiting with. He says that is true as far as calling is concerned, however, for texting, the letters are interpreted the good ol’ way.

So: w0w0 = 9090.

I’d texted someone else completely and I’ve been bothering Etisalat for an entire day because of what is practically my own mistake.

So, I ask the complaint guy: what happened when I sent that SMS to 9090?

Nothing much, he replies. You just donated 90 DHs to Dubai Cares.

How stressful is your job?

2011-01-10T09:52:00.007+04:00

Fire fighter................................. 60.220
Commercial airline pilot.......... 59.530
PR executive.............................. 47.600
Senior corporate executive...... 47.410
Photo journalist........................ 47.090
Taxi driver................................. 46.270
Actor.......................................... 45
Flight attendant....................... 44.840
Reporter (newspaper)............. 44.750
Police officer............................. 43.850
Newscaster............................... 43.560
Highway patrol officer............ 40.710
Travel agent............................. 40.470
Architect................................... 39.930
Stockbroker.............................. 39.700
…
…
…
…
…
Electrical technician............... 8.690
Barber....................................... 8.690
Automobile assembler............ 8.630
Music. instrument repairer.... 8.110
Jeweler..................................... 8.00
Medical records technician.... 7.480
Dressmaker.............................. 7.47
Photographic processor......... 6.820
Bookbinder.............................. 5.940

Source.

P.S.: something very significant must be pointed out here; you ought to look at the methodology by which stress level is assessed by the study. For instance: a demand for travel in a job is considered a stressor. I know people who love to travel. Would not stop traveling if they had a choice. Also competitiveness, physical demand and being in the public eye are considered stressors. You could say the same thing about these factors as well. If competitiveness is considered a stressor, I’m confident there are lots of people who would read this as an ascending boredom scale, not a stress indicator.

Sometimes the most stressful jobs are also the most rewarding.

However, there are items that must be a source of genuine stress for every sane human being. (Unless, of course, you are an asshole who loves deadlines.)

Knock on wood

2011-01-09T18:35:00.007+04:00

Knock on wood
O loved ones
Knock on wood
O loved ones
A clap and ululation
O loved ones
For the national team

Behind every story of failure, disappointment or heartbreak, there’s a humiliating reminder of how things could have been or how they were supposed to be. The ‘grand plans’, ‘high hopes’ and ‘bold aspirations’. The above lyrics stand witness to the utter mediocrity and uselessness of the Syrian national football in the last decade. I was seven years old listening to the above song playing on repeat on TV, celebrating our winning the Mediterranean football championship in 1987 after beating France (team B, I’d later come to realize). Since then, we might have hit the play button and knocked on the wood for the “under twenty” team when they won the Asian cop in ‘94. But that’s it. I picture the producer at Channel One holding the tape, flipping, juggling, kneading, while he wait hopelessly for the team to win something of note. But alas, after every opportunity we’d find that the tape had been returned back to archives, sullen and unused.

Today, at 8:15 UAE time, Syria is going to take on Saudi Arabia in the Asian cup tournament, which is taking place in Doha. This is our first participation in 15 years. The last one was in ’96 here in the UAE. I remember it like it was yesterday. Most notably because of some memorable moments: like when Hassan Abbas, our long-standing defender, whipped a spectacular header to score an own-goal. We ended up losing to China and Japan and barely beating the then feeble Uzbekistan to come third and get the hell out of there from first round.

Syrian football commentators have contributed to the uselessness of our national football by adding absolutely nothing in terms of critique or dispassionate assessment. According to them, it’s OK that our league is shitty, because we have to engage the budding talents from everywhere and give them exposure. Also according to them, it doesn’t matter that our forays into international football almost always end in humiliation, because, regard the full half, our players are getting international exposure!

Some may argue that corruption, nepotism and favoritism are what’s killing Syrian football. I’m not impressed with that argument. There are countries that are literally paralyzed with corruption and lawlessness-- countries that we’d be the embodiment of Utopia in comparison with-- and yet they give rise to amazing football teams.

I know we have the potential. I’ve seen the kids who play barefoot and kick and thrash and tackle on rough asphalt all day long until a stratum of rocks build on the soles of their feet. I was one of them for a brief period of my tortured childhood. At one point, I used to own 17 footballs, 16 of them would be deflated with patches of attempted repair here and there. When I hit puberty (relatively late), I was the flailing defender on the field you better watch out for. I trespassed on myriads of public ~~and private~~ properties in search of a proper venue. I had wounds of every color and variety on my knees and elbows. I used to do a perfect arcing free kick (I still do).

And I was not even among the best 50%.

Anyway. I have a modest wish for the Asian cup. After all, we have Japan and SA in the same group and there’s no room for wishful thinking. I just pray that:

1- No matter what the results are with either Saudi Arabia or Japan, please God, do not let us lose to Jordan.
2- No matter who competes for and then win the cup after Syria is sent packing, please God, do not let it be Australia.

Just don’t ask me why…

1987

I have a blog

2010-12-21T22:37:00.000+04:00

jack london wrote
reams of dialog
fantastic prose
sleek as a mug
chronicles of a journey
narrated by a dog

i have a blog

the gold rush was
his recurring theme
his never ending scheme
tried as he may
to break the mold
to clear the fog
he'll always return
to the leash, and its dog

i have a blog

and so to preempt the death
of flow and creativity
to steer the flotilla
of literary composition
clear of an iceberg
i ponder my choice
of word and dialog
i co-opt the help of technology
digital and analog
to try to compile, a catalog
of do-nots
a list of words
from which to choose,
to choose not

and these words are:

heartbreak
heartache
groins
loins
secrete
accrete
deplete
defeat
women
hymen
bosoms
rhythms
schisms
orgasms
premature
caricature

....
....
stop

on this charade somebody
please pull the plug
because i'm the proprietor of the blog
and i need to vent and rant and rave
and before your authority i will not cave
and your censorship you may save
shove up the place you never shave

i have a blog

now that the point
has been made
now that the ground rules
have been laid
let me tell you what else
i have in spades..
besides the blog
and its maneuvers
of chase and evade

i have a scheme

I HAVE A SCHEME

women of the world, you are the screen
an intricate web of dark and sheen
two alternating figures on a trampoline
an elusive target, lost, sight-unseen
confusing the fellas
as they hit and miss
and hit and miss
and every time there is a miss
there's also, quote unquote, a "miss-
-understanding" ...
and of your attention, poor chap,
she's always demanding
i see you sob, i see you scream
oh brother man, did you call her a queen?

I have a scheme

i see you sob, i see you scream
O brother man did you call her a queen?
and now here you are
flipping coins, from rome to prague
skirts of the world, you are the steam
that moves my gear and turns my cog
the prize held aloft in a dream
the pinnacle of an orgasmic epilogue
a fantasy falling apart at the seams
of a four poster creaking like a frog
milfy scenarios, filmed and seen
like sarah palin going rogue
a woman wants a reenactment of a love scene
as, before the moon, she tiptoes for a kiss and a hug
but what i have is a movie for the above eighteen
and a six-pack, and a six-pack
and so we shag, and we chug

i have a scheme

a woman wants a reenactment of a love scene
as, before the moon, she tiptoes for a kiss and a hug
but what i have is a movie for the above eighteen
and a six-pack, and a six-pack
and so we shag, and we chug
a man does think of all things obscene
your memory let me help you jog
a man could trade his self esteem
for an all-nighter with a broad
in evolution horniness rules supreme
arrow-tipped sperm pointing the road
i regret offending your hygiene
ma'am but things are as grave as they seem
to play biology you need a team
and for this ma'am, i have a scheme
and it's as simple as pouring hot liquid in a jug
a 'receptacle' you say, a stereotype extreme
but that's as far as my lizard intellect had dug
and for this ma'am i have a scheme
and it begins with a word, and a monologue
and it ends with a sigh and a monologue
a medium of a kind, creme de la creme
and a disclaimer as long as a brothel's log

i have a blog

The Decision Maker's Dilemma

2010-12-07T12:01:00.002+04:00

‘Decision-making’ is one of those funny terms in the jargon of business and politics that could mean anything from 'not knowing what the hell you're doing' to 'stalling', 'filibuster', 'repression', 'bypassing', 'skullduggery' ..etc.. It portrays the ‘decision making’ process as one that entails putting together smaller components; soliciting opinions and feedbacks from various players who have a stake in the matter; weighing different options against each others. And so on. And sometimes this is indeed what happens in real life. The decision gets to be put in the process of making, as opposed to have been made already, before the deliberations about how to make it are underway.

I do get the impression, however, that most of the time decision makers have had made up their minds before consulting their underlings and associates. And here’s the real dilemma: they send out letters, enquiries and questionnaires, requesting the inputs of those who matter. But then (depending on the diversity of the choices available and on the amount of dissent permissible) when finally a decision that had been made earlier becomes public and affirmed, the decision maker, who had subconsciously made the decision beforehand, and who went through the motion for the sake of curiosity or thrill, this decision maker will be in a bit of a bind: what to do with the very valid points and vectors of opposition that he had gotten aimed at himself and his decision? He could, for the heck of it, ignore them. Since, well, if you have the capacity of making a decision without oversight breathing down your neck, then you also have the capacity of ignoring, muzzling, and even suppressing dissent.

But this is not how despots think. The decision maker, who’d already made his decision before asking you to proffer your valued opinion on the subject, truly believes that his decision is the smartest, most brilliant (albeit also the most self-serving) one of all. He feels unwittingly insulted by the exposure of flaws and pinpointing of shortcomings in his decision. But what he’s supposed to do about it? The decision had already been made, and he still sincerely, honest-to-god believes that his decision is the finest, most ambitious and visionary one out there. So what should he do to alleviate the feeling of inadequacy he ends up feeling about his decision-making process? He tries to get the opposition, those with the most valid and differing point of views, to change their minds. To see things from his perspective. From his mind-set and his state of being when he’d started making the decision before the decision-making process was supposed to commence. The following scene unfolds:

Despot: I think you made a compelling argument for why your method of approaching the impending crisis is more effective than the one I’d proposed. But hey, don’t you feel that, in the greater scheme of things, we might be able to salvage more assets in the long run by staying the course?

Dissident: Hmm. Nope. I mean, I see the merits of your argument vis-a-vis the status quo. But sitting on our hands is not an option. This is the time for action.

Despot: true, true. But hey, all I’m saying is, veering off from our envisioned trajectory that we’d been plotting with great care for the last decade isn’t an easy, spur-of-the-moment decision. There’s got to be more telltales of a radical, permanent shift in the market situation for us to react the way you’re proposing. You certainly see my point?

Dissident: I certainly see your point. But honestly I don’t see why we’re having this conversation: I’d already exhaustively explained the advantages of tweaking our policies for the upcoming fiscal year. You’d see in my report that I’d played out scenarios of all the possibilities and risks you’re talking about, and I still concluded that this is the best way to go. I can’t put it any better. If my report couldn’t secure your conviction in my proposal then nothing else will, this conversation included.

Despot: Fine, fine. We’re still tossing ideas to see if some last-minute spark of inspiration could break this …standstill. I want the best for this company. And I want us to be on the same page…..

Dissident: well, sir, with all due respect. I’ve already said what I have to say about the subject matter. Take it or leave it.

(Think Tom Hanks in Angles and Demons: "Guys....You called me!")

This scene could go on for a while. And it depends on the resilience and backbone of the dissident. Eventually, he/she could stalk out of the room with exasperation. Or agree to disagree in the most amenable manner and make his/her retreat. Or, if his/her concern for the well being of the despot’s ego surpasses his/her faith in his/her own judgment, he/she could yield and succumb to pressure and eventually agree that the despot’s is the way.

But barring a smooth and unwrinkled conclusion of the decision-maker’s impasse, don’t you, with all the compassion of your heart, empathize with the decision-maker and his dilemma?

Despots of the world, I feel for you. Hang in there…

A Word About What's Been Leaking And Lacking

2010-12-06T18:04:00.006+04:00

There is something slightly troublesome about the whole wikileaks saga. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for more transparency and more governments' accountability as far as foreign policy is concerned, and for leaders to say in private what they say in public…etc... But there’s something really bothersome about the wikileaks' discourse. Something that had either been omitted or ignored, which I’m going to summarize in a few words:

To my American and European friends who live under democratically elected governments and are (probably rightfully) angry about the wikileaks revelations: seriously, what are you getting your knickers in a twist about? What’s so new about these revelations? Like, do you even know or care what your governments did before in PLAIN SIGHT? And what were you doing about it then? Have you heard of the Goldstone report? How is that for a leak? What are you going to do about your governments covering up war crimes? Your leaders aren’t even bothered about your reactions to the stuff that you are allowed to see and read, why should they bother now? Again, have you heard of the Goldstone report? Americans, how do you feel about your congress condemning a report it had not read (according to rep. Dennis Kucinich)?

You have the right to be angry. But please don’t insult my intelligence. Outrageous and anger-inducing stuff have been out in the open for a long, long time…

I have much more to say and more questions and examples to bring up. But I'll spare you

And in return, please....Spare me…

Tips For Architects Doing Interior Design Jobs

2010-12-05T19:40:00.001+04:00

I thought I’d write something professional and useful for once. So bear with me.

I’ve handled a couple of modest interior design jobs recently. And I thought I’d share with my fellow architects a few tips that could get you through a similar challenge with the best possible results. Although, from a broader point of view, these tips are applicable for everyone who works in design.

There’s no substantial difference between architecture and interior design, except maybe that what we do is cruder and less insane. The majority of career architects I know are hesitant about getting mired in the great expanses of the amoebic field that is interior design. Personally speaking, what I find unsettling about interior design is handling loose items (like furniture, etc). The way I see it, architecture is structured and stationary. Yes, doors revolve and windows swing and skylight slides and sun screens revolve; and yet all these elements are still structured and static, in their own way. Interior design, on the other hand, deals with a menagerie of loose and disconnected items. And there’s nothing more infuriating to me like fussing over things endlessly. I know an interior designer of a hotel who had to change an artifact behind a reception desk FIVE TIMES before he settled down for something less aesthetically attractive that what he’d started with. As far as I see it, taking out women shopping might be more bearable. Sorry, I’m not your best gay friend (no offense to gays)…

Anyway, enough with the drivels, here goes:

1- Function: Is far less important in interior design than in mainstream architecture. Set your theme and don’t shy away from trying something bold.

2- Perspectives (or 'artistic illustrations', as Gulf News likes to call them) are your friends: But you should define all the materials you are using in advance. You are entitled for a little wild thought-experiments while doodling, but whatever you show the client has to be tangible and solid. (And backed up with materials). And it follows from here that you should know your materials in advance and be prepared. Think of your materials as your vocabulary, can you write well without vocabulary? (I’ve heard this metaphor from a very mediocre and under-achieving interior designer).

3- The devil is in the details: Except here you are going to have to deal with the devil. You should have a strategy for detailing that covers all ambiguous areas, without ending up exhausted and behind schedule. Walk through your design front to back, back to front, top to bottom, left to right, in the dark, in the sunshine, like a child, like an adult, with a critical eye, blind, on wheelchair…etc... A good finished product is one that is universal in its appeal.

4- You are going to have to be persuasive. No client will accept ink on glossy papers without a supportive, passionate spiel. And the initial No, (especially in our part of the world), doesn’t always mean No: it could mean a) I like this design, you’re a good designer, but I’m a bit of a spoiled brat and I need some coaxing to proffer my consent. b) I like this design, but I’m not going to sound cheap and easy. You’re going to have to work a little harder. c) I like this design, but I’m not sure. I really am not sure. I’m hesitant. I’m ambivalent. Oh, God. I’m anxious. I feel weak and hollow and defenseless and I need reassurances. I need support. d) I like your design, but I never buy from the first shop ‘round the corner. Try harder…and so on. It’s incumbent upon you, and you owe it to your design, to exhaust all these possibilities before you give up and surrender to another round of doodling.

5- Respect budget: I always wonder why the fuck most construction projects overshoot budget (especially in our part of the world). And in order to understand why the fuck most construction projects overshoot budget you should take all factors into account: strike down price escalations (and this has indeed been a serious problem in the last 5 years, with the mad vacillation of all raw materials), put aside changes and additions and expansions and upgrades, and you still end up with incompetent budgeting. Or maybe it’s a deliberate, wishful, superstitious act meant to entrap clients and then after they realized they’re going have to pay more it’ll be too late to backtrack….. For whatever reason: Interior Design jobs are the most susceptible to budget overshoots. And for a good reason: pretty and desirable materials aren’t cheap. The old trick of decking out a building in affordable materials and making sure it still looks pretty five years down the line isn’t only overrated: it’s also risky. More often than not, cheap materials mean there are no warrantees and no qualified staff for installation. Be honest about budget limits upfront.

6- Be humble: assertiveness doesn’t always mean downright condescension. If your client is a nomad who’d struck luck and made it big and his taste in cars and clothes makes your stomach turn; then tough shit. You signed up for the job. You should know how to sell your idea without talking down to your client.

7- Be part of the contractor selection process: Meet them face-to-face and make sure you’re on the same page. Communication is crucial here. No matter how well your design is thought-out and detailed on paper, if the contractor and his foremen can’t understand (or accept) your verbal instructions and comments at site, the finished product loses a significant part of its quality.

8- Ask for mock-ups: If you’re still unsure about certain areas in the design, ask the contractor to make mock-ups of them (2 x 2 square, or 2 linear) and show it to your client. Mock-ups are of a great assistance when you have repetitive elements in your design. And they help everybody envisage how things are going to look like eventually.

Finally, make sure you have a plan B always on the ready: basically to severe all your professional contacts and drop from public eye for a couple of weeks. This will come in handy when it turns out that your design actually sucks when the job is completed.

Happy National Day, UAE!

2010-12-01T19:43:00.003+04:00

I walked through the patio of the Dubai Municipality building, a space otherwise vacant except for the stray guy smoking a cigarette by the fountain or a distressed consulting engineer on the phone with a contractor (phone calls of such kind, devoid of any recognizable code of civility, have to be conducted out of doors). But today was remarkably different: stalls of traditional local food and crafts, wide and expansive wooden benches and thick, floor mounted mats forming entwined majlises were erected to celebrate the occasion of the 39th birthday of the country. The entire space was adorned with flags and pictures of the leaders and pioneers of this young yet great nation.

I took a slip of paper from the automated token machine and sat underneath an intricate skylight feature on one of the cushioned waiting chairs. As my turn came closer, an extremely polite young man approached me and asked if I can afford him a 'five minutes of my time', for a customer satisfaction survey he's doing. He said he represents an independent research firm doing a survey in this regard on the behalf of DM (Dubai Municipality). I said sure, but I'd have to move on once my number is called on the electronic board. He went through the standard issue questions of profession and areas of interest. Then he asked about my name. I said I'd only be comfortable giving him my first name, if he was in turn interested in a candid response from me. This elicited a smile on his part and he said it's not a problem.

There is no doubt that the UAE is a great country. A small nation that had made great strides in the areas of trade, media, education, tourism, construction, entrepreneurship, etc. And I'm extremely happy to have witnessed milestone events while living here: the commencement of construction, the construction itself and inauguration of the Dubai metro; the inauguration of Burj Khalifah; the opening, respectively, of the Mall of the Emirates, the Dubai Mall and the Atlantis hotel, the opening of the gorgeous grand Sheikh Zayed mosque in Abu Dhabi; the UAE national team winning the Gulf Cup in 2007....just to name a few. I've been here 6 years, and it's been a whirlwind of events, some memorable, others less so. I'm grateful for being here and for the opportunity to have exposure to the latest trends and techniques in the world of construction. In hindsight, I could have probably made more money staying at home and setting up my own engineering practice, but the lifestyle (transient and taxing as it may be), the professional experience that could be garnered and the work and life ethics (flawed as they may be) are some of the things that kept me here.

But my love for the UAE (and more specifically, Dubai), is marred by something akin to the expectations of a cynical couple. There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to exhibit your full potential to your best half. There is nothing more foolish than the recidivism of those who are constantly trapped in a unilateral love affairs. And my cognizance of these restraints and circumscriptions keeps me from voicing my concerns in a more articulate and vocal fashion. It's always a questionnaire filled on a first name basis or an anonymous blog post. And hence, I tend to keep my love at bay.

On the other hand, you have the ilk of people with their sets of ready made demands. They rant and rave on the comments section of the less scrutinized English dailies. They go on about how unfair and backward things are, for them. And how unfair things are for those less unfortunate. The valid points they sometimes make are undermined by the arrogant sense of propriety and entitlement in which they deliver their message. Never mind that their conceited attitude is supported by the exact system they seem to despise. A system of accent, color, and nationality privilege. Make no mistake about it, this is not a broken love affair where the couple fail to engage and communicate openly. For this group of people, the expectations and lists of demands are an independent being of its own. Probably never meant or expected to be acted upon. It's perhaps their way of justifying the gaps and disparateness, if for no one else but themselves.

Eventually, I discarded my time slot with the intended counter and sat with the researcher for fifteen minutes, explaining to him passionately what I think is wrong and how it could be improved. His face contoured with concentration as he tried to summarize my fiery remarks. I have no doubt that DM sincerely wants to improve their services and make life easier for everyone involved. And I wish them nothing but good luck, on a first name basis.

Happy National Day, United Arab Emirates. Here's to many more happy returns.

Once Upon A Timeline

2010-11-23T16:55:00.002+04:00

Once upon a time, there was a coastal town stretched like strip along a sandy beach, with a shy creek in the middle. The inhabitants of this town were of mixed origins and various cultures, but the common denominator among them was their thirst for technology. They loved their gadgets and devices to the degree of worship, but they also craved the human connection. However, there's nothing the devices can't help you with. Sites, were you can display pictures and update ‘statuses’, were relied upon to provide that connection. Soon enough, a large contingent of the population were wholeheartedly immersed in the online networking experience. Updating, checking their friends' updates, chatting and typing furiously on their mobile devices wherever they were, and as frequently as they could, while the creek sat there heaving and receding with its shy tidal waves.

Capitalizing on the success of bringing people together, the active members of the online community sought to exploit this popularity by a number of different means, depending on areas of interests and common concerns. People who were crazy about shopping exchanged notes and pictures of display windows. Individuals who were compulsive eaters exchanged pictures and recipes. Banking services, statutory procedures and medicinal concoctions were rated, reviewed and analyzed, through updates and replies and, the more private and secure, direct messages.

One area of concern for the residents of this town was speeding camera. The traffic police, cognizant of the rising number of traffic accidents and fatalities, had deployed massive number of speed-cameras, mobile and stationery. The speed cameras, wicked devices themselves, reduced accidents and generated some revenue. But human nature is inclined towards speed and oblivious of the repercussions. When social networking websites had become as popular as they were ever going to be (with at least 50 percent of the population connected to, plugged in, wired in, hooked and tethered to the web one way or the other), one active mind on the social sphere had an idea.

What if we took advantage of our mobile devices to beat the mobile speed cameras? After all, knowledge is power. And there's nothing more efficient in beating the mobile radars than an army of volunteer, mobile informants. If you know for sure where the mobile cameras are, you can either avoid them or preempt them by slowing down well before location. The active minds came up with something called a 'hash tag'; a predefined common word after a hash symbol '#'. The whole concept relied on the reporting thoroughness. And, being the wiseasses that they were, the active minds understood that if everyone online was just a recipient of information, eventually no one would receive any.

So reporting was encouraged.

After the concept gathered momentum and popularity, the reporting breadth and extensiveness covered almost the entire town. There was not a single mobile radar that wasn’t picked up on the network and which location and malice was broadcast to the grid. It was an amusing case of rule-reversal. The law enforcement division responsible for revenue collection noticed the sharp drop. The policemen operating the radars noticed the drop. It was first thought that the radars are not being hidden well enough. but no matter how creative and surreptitious the placement was, no radar was able to pick up more than two or three speeding vehicles, before all those behind them fell to well below speed limits. Pretending to be the thoughtful, scrupulous drivers that they were actually not.

The hash-tag in question grew more and more popular. And the revenues suffered acute falls. But accidents also rose. Partly because people were now more distracted by the informative hash-tag while they were driving, and partly because mobile cameras lost their edge of surprise.

The hash-tag had become the talk of the town. Even to the point where drivers of public transport buses check it out on a frequent basis. Even passengers riding the metro had a quick look at it while on-board, to see if they could steal a glimpse of a policeman crouching with his radar gun behind a hedge on a road edge. It was celebrated, blogged about, even attempted to be made a global trending topics. After all, the netizens have won. They should consolidate their win by a TT. They even went to the extent of thinking about a dedicated account with a full time employee to collate info, but then they dropped the idea since it bellied the ghostly, dynamic and illusive spirit of the hash-tag.

But the popularity of the hash tag also meant it was impossible to keep it away from the knowledge of the authorities. The police were eventually made aware of it. Some of them even availed themselves of its services while off duty. But those were the minority. The majority of law enforcement officers were unnerved by it. It was virtually impossible to deploy radars all over town. If the hash tag wasn’t dealt with, there was going to be some unsightly consequences.

The creek heaved and sighed and rose and fell. And accidents kept rising.

A group of nervous traffic policemen brought the subject before the police commander-in-chief. A man who’s known for his calm and his acumen. He digested the problem and asked for a suggestion. One hesitant officer proposed blocking the website. But the chief was not prepared to do that. For he knew that such websites brought the good with them along with the bad. And besides, online groups like "Citizens For Preserving The Wilderness of The Internet", "Don’t Retweet if You Can’t Stand The Heat" and "Cyber Bullies United" were powerful enough to cause a public uproar in case of a block. He concluded the meeting by asking for a report to be prepared and sent to him, explaining the mechanisms and the workings of the social networking website in details. The officers were puzzled; here we’re telling him about a serious threat to our road safety, and he wants to learn how the website works?

But orders were orders. And soon enough a report was made. The commander in chief read it and then thought for an hour. He then called the head of his IT department and asked for additional tasks to be assigned to his 100 strong employees. Rotating shifts on 24 hours basis or even taking fully compensated overtime. The Commander-in-chief explained what he wanted them to do. A thin smile of recognition spread on the face of IT specialist on the other end of the line. He hung up and set his men to work.

The next morning something eerie and incomprehensible was unfolding in the cyber sphere. The social networking website was abuzz with activity. The speed cameras hash-tag much more active than ever before. Speed cameras were reported on virtually every corner of the city. And then denied. And then reported again. And then denied again. Traffic came to standstill at some places while drivers with gaping mouths started in disbelief at the unraveling drama on their little screens.

But better be safe than sorry. They stuck to speed limits for the day, leaving it to the active minds to pinpoint the flaws and sort out the problems of the dysfunctional hash-tag. Those proposed a new hash-tag, to be used with the start of business hours the next day. The bulk of online dwellers have been informed. Everyone slept happily with the prospect of a new, unblemished hash tag in their minds.

However, the next day was no different. Again, reports about speed cameras were far more than usual. The virtual image they drew was of a town with a network of roads with more radars studded on them than the there are trees in the amazons. And again, ‘peeps’ were deeply troubled by the uselessness of their precious hash-tag. They had no choice but to again stick to speed limits for the day. And this they did. Hoping the active minds would address the problem that was now more serious that it had first appeared to be.

But the active minds were more perplexed than their statuses would let on. They hypothesized, debated, argued with and cursed each other. They followed and unfollowed and threw hints left and right. Alliances formed and fault-lines emerged and groupism snuck its ugly face to the surface. The hash-tag was in a serious threat of a complete meltdown.

One such active member was keeping quite the entire day. Except for a silly line of poetry and a 4square check-in at a pub in the afternoon, he’d not joined in the whirlwind of discussion. Eventually, his absence was noticed and 'peeps' started worrying and asking his whereabouts and his advice.

The said active member, however, was hunched protectively over a bottle of fine European beer. Deep in thought. He had been analyzing the problem for the last three hours. Tossing ideas and testing them for loopholes and flimsy logic. Eventually, he concluded that the hash-tag, and all other and related future hash-tags, were gone forever. And for a simple reason.

The commander in chief was from a military background. He knew about the art of war. He knew his adversaries’ edge was their possession of information. And if you can’t cut off the flow, then you may as well resort to the oldest, most underestimated trick in the book: disinformation.

The commander had instructed his little battalion of IT technicians to inundate the now deceased hash tag with bogus information. Each one of them made up a dozen fake accounts and then worked on making them look normal, following each other back and forth, until they looked legit. Until they matched the criss-crossed, incestuous networking pattern of the larger community. And they were impossible to detect. All risqué updates and bios replete with words about guruism and entrepreneurship. Who was going to make them? Once they started their false reporting, the net of speed cameras was virtually spread all over town. And they were going to stay that way till eternity.

The half-drunk active member of the city's online community whipped out his blackberry from his back pocket. Some 3500 notifications told him he had as much mentions, direct messages and chat boxes active. He ignored them all and went to his status update box and typed the following short message and hit ‘Send’:

“for get it guys…. hash tag is fucked. Just stick to speed limits. Or take a mortgage on the house & go pay fines. OK?! #IDontGiveAShit”

Egypt: Police Stations And Forced Marriages

2010-11-18T19:56:00.004+04:00

I translated parts of a shocking and eye-opening investigative report which was published in the supplement of Arabic Al Bayan newspaper yesterday.

(This is Egypt in the 21 century, by the way.)

Marriage at police stations, stories that will leave you teary eyed

What a perplexing and bizarre thing to be happening.... As it's well known, according to Sharia, law and tradition, it's the marriage contract first and then the wedding, accompanied by celebration of all involved. But what the following stories reveal to us is that sometimes the wedding [I believe the writer here is alluding to the sexual intercourse that takes place on the wedding night], precedes the marriage contract, forcefully, under the sad and silent stare of all involved.

No one can imagine the bitterness those who're forced into marriages in police station experience. It's where their dreams are shattered and hopes are crushed and future is destroyed. Their eyes sinking in waves of tears as they realize the darkness that lies ahead. A stark contrast to what they were planning and hoping for. They suddenly realize they'll live a painful life at the constant threat of divorce. No choice in this life but to wait and hope. Their stories are all replete with tears and miseries and heartbreak.

Asma

How could this girl marry the guy who'd brutally raped her? How can she live with him?

This is what Asma, 23 years old from Mansoura (the delta of Egypt), asked after narrating her story.

The story:

"After I finished work one day I headed to main street and waved a taxi to take me home. I'd fallen into the habit of writing the number plate of all the veihcles I ride on my mobile phone. And this one was no exception. There were two men sitting out front, so I sat in the back. After a while they both started giggling in muted voices and looking at me furtively. I got suspecious and asked the driver to take his fare and stop to let me out.... but his laughing only got louder, and the other man joined in, too.

I tried to give the driver his fare and asked him to stop more assertively. But he kept driving to a dark and deserted place and moved fast to gag me with his shirt... (Asma' here is crying her eyes out, the report notes). Then he and his partner raped me several times. Every time I tried to get up he'd hit me hard and force me back on the ground. When they were finished he gave me back the fare and drove away. I hurried to the nearest police station and told the officer on duty everything. I gave them the number plate and within hours the perpetrator was brought in the station. When he stood before me I couldn't help myself; I took my shoes off and hit him on the face. He stunned me by saying: "I'm going to marry you...." So I hit him hard again with my hands. Until I saw the officer lift the phone and ask for the station's marriage officiator to be brought in. All at once the world turned black: how could I marry the guy who raped me? but the marriage went ahead. And the dowry was set for 25 piaster [one quarter of an Egyptian pound]. And then the criminal took me away. I saw it on his face, the smug bragging that he'd gotten away with his deed by agreeing to marry me. I see the crime he'd done to me every time I look at him. I'm reminded of that trauma everyday. I don't know what to do."

Suad, 18 years old student of humanities, also narrated her painful story:

"I loved him and he loved me. After we'd agreed to get married, he came to my parents' house to propose. But my father turned him down on the account that he doesn't have a job or a residence for himself. My father had then given him a chance to at least find a house for us to live in. The next day he called me and asked me to meet him, we sat and talked about our future and what to do. He then asked me to come to his mother's house so that we try to convince her to allow us to live with her. I first refused but then I reluctantly agreed and went with him. But when we got there there was nobody home. I asked where his mother is, he said she must have gone shopping. He then proceeded to beat me violently until I passed out. When I came to, I realized that everything was over: he raped me to put my parents under a de facto situation where they'd have to agree to his proposal to marry me. He said he'd only done this because he loved me. I couldn't tell my parents so I went to the police. My parents were called in and they blamed me for going with him. The police officer then brought the rapist and ordered him to marry me. At that moment I'd felt my heart crushed. And my tears fell nonstop. This is not the marriage I was looking for. I can't look the guy I once loved in the face anymore."

Nadia, 20 years old, has more or less the same story.. After she'd been raped and battered by A, she felt she had no chance to avoid scandal and scorn but to get him to marry her. But when she stood in the police station while the papers were being signed, she felt as if her death certificate is being produced, not a marriage contract. "I prayed to God to take my life before I'm taken to this monster's house. No one can imagine how dark and bleak my life is, completely devoid of hopes or ambitions. I can't even have a baby: how can I have a baby with this monster? I don't think our life together will last. All I got from this marriages is the affidavit number I'd gotten from the police when I came in to press charges. But I got none of my rights back..."

The report ends by providing some statistics. Mohamed Fekri, a sociologist, estimates there are more than TWENTY THOUSANDS forced marriages conducted in Police Stations every year in Egypt. The cases invariably stem from rape, sexual harassment, girls lured to sexual relationships by the promise of.....marriage, and other related circumstances. In some cases spurned men resort to rape to get to marry a woman who'd turned them down (or whose family turned them down). Fekri states that these marriages are emotionless and brittle and 80% of them end up in divorce. Add to that all the emotional suffering of victims, who has the reason of their misery stated in the marriage contract: rape, sexual harassment, violation of honor...etc..

How could a marriage that start off with a disaster last?

End of report.

(p.s. I intentionally left out a paragraph where Sharia experts were interviewed and they opined that these marriages are all null and void because they don't enjoy mutual consent ..etc.. Of course, these Sharia experts and clergy men are missing the point. And anyway, they have had enough time and authority to treat societal maladies, and they're failing at it. It's time for a complete mentality overhaul...)

Update I:

Here's a link to Al Bayan's story in Arabic.

Sex And Shisha

2010-11-08T23:00:00.004+04:00

The first thought that flashed across my mind when I laid my eyes upon this gem of an article was: wow, something that combines two of my favorite subjects, sex and shisha. This must be one hell of an article. Turned out I was right, but for the wrong reasons.

Let me say this upfront: smoking is bad. There is no argument from there. It makes man prone to a whole array of heart diseases. Raises the probability of gum, throat and lung cancer. Ruins your teeth. Messes your pharynx. Badly affects your physical fitness. And, yes, it might slow you a little in a sack, if you don’t counter-balance it with cardio workout.

However, it’s really funny and ironic how the subject of smoking (and especially shisha smoke) is handled in the media (and advertisements, commercials, awareness campaigns.. etc..). I’ve written before about a health radio show, in which the presenter rattled off a series of regurgitated stereotypes about shisha and its smokers. And I said then and I say it now: I’ve seen all sorts of horrid anti-smoking ads, I’ve seen the charred lungs, the enshrouded cadavers; wriggled and squirmed on a lip of a huge ashtray to resemble a crushed cigarette. I’ve seen a huge billboard with bullet laid side by side next to a cigarette, with the obvious fatal common effect articulated below: smoking kills. I’ve seen the zombie-like faces of cancer patients in their last days of struggle, (a struggle which, by the way, I completely respect and admire and don’t intend to ridicule or underestimate)…. I’ve seen it all.

But I’m not deterred.

It seems to me that the anti-smoking literature needs to mature, to grow out of its rigid stereotypes, its childish quibbles and stating-the-obvious rhetorics. Smoking, especially shisha smoking, isn’t all about substance dependency and craving chemicals. Forget the ostensible image of fumes inhaled and exhaled. Smoking, and especially shisha smoking, is a way of life. However harmful, wasteful, unpleasant and counterproductive that way may be, it’s still a way of life. You can’t just expect people to drop it and move on because it’s bad.

In other words, if you’re really concerned about smokers and their health. Then be empathetic to them. Try and see things from their point of view.

But this, of course, isn’t happening. What anti-smoking campaigns end up doing is bashing smokers and showing them what retarded, unsightly, selfish, worthless pieces of turd they are. How they’re going to live miserably and die lonely and unloved like smelly dogs.

How do you expect smokers to take you seriously if this is the message you’re getting across?

Now back to the aforesaid article. No doubt this piece of rehashed talking points pushes the fatuousness a little further. Gloatingly basking in the light of the sexual impotence of whoever smoked the pipe, even second-handedly or experimentally.

Smoking is sexual suicide, comes the resounding statement from world-renowned author and sex therapist, Dr Rosie King, with shisha smoking being the root cause of impotency in men in the Middle East.
In a country where the shisha culture is embedded in its social makeup, the news that excessive usage of the water pipe causes impotency in men has seen many a heavy smoker cross his legs in a seemingly protective move.

Sexual suicide. How very intriguing.

The second paragraph reminds me of a session with a world-renowned crime author I’ve attended a couple of years ago. She mentioned how cases of men rape in US prisons are a serious endemic and that whenever she narrates the horrors of these rapes stories all the men in the room cross their legs.

My splayed-legged self at the time thought: how typically womanly of her to think so. It’s probably more of a woman habit to cross legs when she hears of rape or forced intercourse, since, well, your vagina is out front somewhere. On the other hand, we don’t cross our legs because of that. I assure you. We might clinch our butt holes. (probably just to suppress a long due fart), but we don’t cross our legs.

The rare occasions when I had to cross my legs in public (and some of them while I was, indeed, smoking shisha in public) were because I had to hide a raging erection. You see, I’ve developed the compound habit of reading books while smoking. I can hardly do either of them alone. And when I come across a raunchy chapter, I would have to evoke all the turn-offs in the world (including some anti-smoking diatribes), in order to allow my penis to stand at ease and not to make a jerk out of myself.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and governments across the Middle East are upping the efforts to kick the butt. The Egyptian Ministry of Health took a drastic step earlier this year and unveiled a graphic warning label of a drooping cigarette, symbolising the potential for tobacco-induced impotence, plastered on every pack sold throughout the country.

See, Egypt, with its 80 million people and sky-rocking population growth could use the smoke. That’s one more reason to thank the shisha for having curtailed the explosive, almost exponential, increase of birthrate in the Nile country.

Indeed, shisha, the water pipe that burns flavored tobacco, can expose users to the smoke equivalent to five packs of cigarettes, according to statistics from the WHO.

The water pipe can expose users….. We never get to know what that water pipe here means. And how it’s quantified. By time? By the amount of smoke exhaled from the man with the flaccid dick? An hour worth of smoke? Two hours? 15 minutes?

"The more you smoke, the less you poke," she states.

I think this is supposed to be the funny punch-line. If you wanna get the man to react (or act), then get him where it hurts. Under the belt. In the groins. Threaten his sexual self esteem, and encourage his atavistic lust and unlock the beast in him by promising more fulfilling and frequent sex once the water pipe is ditched.

Wow. What a brilliant reverse psychology and turn of phrase.

Don’t get me wrong, guys. I’m all for scientific research on the subject. But real and comprehensive research. Not crock of shit, un-peer-reviewed research.

Airports

2010-10-29T22:09:00.000+04:00

Everyone who had experienced air travel would tell you this: they hate airports. Or they love airports. You simply can't be indifferent to airports. You can't have an emotional truce with airports. You can't stand on the fence: the fence here will give you an electric shock. So you either love them, or you hate them.

I hate airports.

I understand their importance, though. This indispensable cog in the wheel of modern life. The terminals of 20th century transport that came as an answer to the Wrights' brothers invention. Mass air travel, where people converge to share a confined space of artificial comfort. And the necessary byproducts of this proximity, the safeguards and procedures put in place by man to ensure safe journeying: The queues and passport control and security measures and draconian scrutiny of luggage. I'm fine with that. I'm cool with that. I'm even at a good terms with the invisible tower control officer and the pilot in his reinforced cockpit. I love them all.

That's not why I hate airports.

There seems to be an awful lot of sobbing at airports, at both departure and arrival halls. I used to think it's an ethnic issue, a cultural peculiarity: some folks are less tear proof than others.... But I was wrong, ethnic groups vary only in the amount of sobbing they partake in, not in the existence of it. Here's a wager: go to any airport in the world with a considerable volume of passengers, at any given time of any given day, and there will always be someone sobbing. Here's a worthy scientific experiment: to find out whether the chemical composition of tears coming forth at arrival halls is any different from that at the departure hall.

I've never sobbed at airports, and this is probably why I hate them. Every time I trudge down the infinite walkways, hallways, travel-belts, duty-free zones, the rows of burly uniformed men with Heckler & Koch slung over their shoulders (I haven't seen them yet, but come on, they sure are there stowed away at standby in some bunker, sobbing their eyeballs off while oiling and servicing their gear), every time I undertake this ritual I feel I'm being cornered, being nudged by an imperceptible force, like the suggestive questions of an interviewer; here's BBC Hardtalk with Stephen Sackur, here's Charlie Rose with a devilish inquisitor sitting in for him, ready with the hard ones: Where are you going? Where have you been? Business or pleasure? What are you gonna tell your mother? Do you think your father would have been happier if his passing of age hadn't registered in your face? How are you gonna deal with the PR fallout of your not recalling the name of the infant son of the brother in law of your second removed cousin, who made the effort to come and greet you at the airport, sobbing his eyes off?

Why are you not sobbing?

Here's a scenario of a happy journey: coming home after winning the world cup, or traveling air force one after securing an explosive interview with the POTUS, or being wedged between the cheerleaders of the team who is bringing the world cup home, pressed unto them by the thrust of the plane's engine, watching as they strip off to sun-tan (and hey, it's *always* sunny up there).

But what you get instead is the constipated businessman. The crying infant. The dude with the gigantic femurs caressing your back. The middle aged woman in the aisle seat across the aisle who's sobbing silently before the landing, and ululating through yellow teeth afterwards. The pushing and shuffling, the impatient glares, the exposure to seasonal disease. Here's truth, ladies and gentlemen: there's no room for pretentiousness up there in the stratosphere. Even the guy with the binoculars pointed downward in the direction of the porthole had come to terms with it. Even the trained stewardess had come to terms with it. The truth is here, you can either don your eye mask and tune it out, or whisper furiously to your prayer beads, or try to follow the hollow plot (as hollow as this fuselage) of this trashy novel (belonging to the genre of, you got that right!: airport novels). Aircrafts are airports, an extremity of them anyway: you've been picked up at an airport by an aircraft, you're gonna be dejected at an airport by an aircraft. After the metabolism of time zones and international treaties have secreted their juices unto you. After the pointed questioning and cavity search and soul searching.

The 20th century have divided people into tow groups: those who experienced air travel and those who didn't. The 21st century is probably gonna divide people into two different groups: those who sob at airports and those who don't.

Congrats on a safe and auspicious voyage, everyone. I hope you enjoy your terrestrial time. And I sure hope you remembered to fasten your seat belts.

Al Ittihad: The Red Devils

2010-10-23T10:58:00.004+04:00

I don't usually comment on, watch or care about football championships for clubs. I sometimes watch the odd Champions League game if I happen to be at a coffee shop while it's on. But other than that, I have no interest whatsoever.

But this strikes very close to home. In fact, it strikes right at home. Al Ittihad, the football team of my hometown, Aleppo, had qualified to the finals of the Asian Federation Cup by beating Muang Thong (kid you not) of Thailand 2-0 at the second leg of the semi final (and 2-1 by aggregate).

Alright, it's not the world cup. But Asia is still Asia: Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabi, Iran and China. And having observed the trajectory of Al Ittihad so far, it looks like their reaching the finals isn't a coincidence or a fluke of luck, there was an awful lot of hard work involved. Good on them.

On the other hand, I felt goosebumps all over when I watch the game: 70,000 strong fans crowded the (relatively) new Aleppo Stadium. Chanting like maniacs. No doubt, there's one religion in Aleppo these days, and it's Al Ittihad.

Women At The Mall

2010-10-18T23:42:00.004+04:00

Out there in the city. Out there in the taxonomized and categorized developments of the city, there exist huge buildings. Buildings that, among other characteristics, have few windows and infinite surfaces of epoxy-coated concrete, dotted with massive sigange advertising the merchandise sold inside.

Let's pause for a moment and observe how it all starts here, with the artwork of the backlit signage. The auctioning of feminine beauty, the distribution of womanly fashion. A model stares at you with open mockery. With her splayed legs and impertinent hips. She dares you to step inside. As she had obviously done before. Before when she was on our side, looking haggard and harassed in a humidity-inflicted sweat. She had done it. She had stepped inside before. And here is what happened to her after.

Aren't we all lucky that before always elapsed before the after?

And now we are inside, now we have threaded our way through the inert cooling infernos, also known as cars, and found the automatic sliding doors. Now we are inside. We are the insiders, the privileged. For here is the harem of modern urbanism. Here is the G-spot of metropolitan pleasures. Here is where the bodily transformation began and never ended. Here is where it all happens. Inside. You would never have known by merely looking at the photoshoped adverts. You would never have guessed.

The four-generational carnival begins with the screaming infant in his crib. Ensconced in his stroller and pushed around by the protective mommy. It's probably one of life's most baffling mysteries that kids cry at the malls. You want to step forward and implore the little angel: why, kid? what do you want more? an exact replica of the tropical forests where our ancestor had dwelt before some of them left Africa? a different, state-of-the-art, multi-billion worth climate control system? you want mommy to ditch the thong and go for a real fig leaf instead? cheer up, kid. Be grateful. You are one of the insiders.

Too bad you can't deposit the infants at the play area.

And then we come here, to the play area. Or to be precise, to the area designated as a play area for kids by the adults. Or to be more precise, to the area whose name is designed to make adults feel less infantile about what they do inside. "Hey honey, let's leave the kids at the play area so that we can go and ..hm.. do other things rather than playing." Will you tell the bozo to shut up? Adults undertakings at the mall aren't any more serious or mature than the kids'.

Kids play, adults play.

Men pay, women don't.

So we are left with the strollers, dodging our way through the crowds. The ladies, their prospect for auditioning at a local beauty contest improving the deeper they move inside. The gentlemen, trailing behind. The marble floor turned gleaming clean with the sweep of their dropped jaws. The Asian maids picking up the rear.

But we must not be quick in our judgement. Putting yourself in the shoes of a judge at the beauty contest, applying the talents of your scrutiny, you would start noticing the flaws. You would notice the residue of the life before. The love handles. The birth stretch marks. The wide hips. They all admit themselves to the fashion avenue and fill up the verbal forms to the suited salesperson with the spiked hair and effeminate smile. They then move through the motion, searching, consulting, trying, grimacing, smirking, buying. And they keep coming, as more sore points unearth themselves and demand the attention of a designer product.

And we are obligated, by the virtue of us being judges in the imaginary beauty contest, to check out the outcome. To see the outcome. To smell the outcome. To follow the outcome to the foodcourt. Watch the procession as she dismisses one sign-boarded menu after the other. The head poised upward, the throat looming at us in profile. We watch as she maneuvers the shopping bags and the trays and the hungry, squealing kids and the distressed maid. And orchestrate the eating process that follows. Fussing over details. And the kids, when they are on their best behavior, evoke an image of a violent prison riot. How could they not, when they have a mommy like this? The hungry overalled laborer gazes. The hungry executive ogles. Taking a mental inventory of such a scene is never an easy endeavor.

Commerce concluded for the day, we make our way back where we have come from. We depart the state of inside-ness. We will be back, though. We are the junkies. We have become ensnared in the daily farce of mall worship.

We will be back.

Deer in the headlight

2010-10-16T16:01:00.003+04:00

why did it freeze with fright?
immobile with fear?
who could blame the deer
in the headlight
when this wasn’t
what it’d bargained for
a pair of light
so overwhelming,
so bright.
with its bulging eyes and fixed stare
gone in a nanosecond
of a quivering flare

maybe we shouldn’t be very critical
of the deer in the headlight
for it may never have known
that hard metal was were
the floods of blinding light
were mounted
nor did it learn of the nightly habits
of those who excelled at evolution
but failed when exhalations of breath
were sampled

it’d be futile to argue
who got the right of way
when the deer stood still
in the headlight
nor we could know for sure
whether the deer had it all planned
had us all scammed
with his primal fears
his proclamation
his sneer:
your impressive gear
is nothing but an entrapment
my own primordial jeers
are your predicament

and then there’s the ritual
of scraping body parts
of washing blood and dry bones
of becoming entrenched in the philosophy
of prevention
of commemorating headstones

Please! No more deer in the headlight

and then there are the groups
who vow to sue
who revel in self-introspection
long overdue
as if everyone else had no clue
as if mattered
to the deer
in the headlight

On Secularism

2010-10-08T20:24:00.003+04:00

I realize that any discussion that touches on secularism can't satisfy the subject without addressing religion as well (secularism being, by basic definition, the separation of church and state), and that all discussions with regards to religion end up polarizing the interlocutors. But as the saying goes, sometimes a man gotta do what a man gotta do.

There's a school of thought out there that argues that if a majority of people in a society thought it's in their best interest to adopt religion as a reference in legislation, then, by the virtue of democracy, their wish must be granted, and that we, indeed, ought to regard this process as purely democratic.

I can not disagree more.

It's sometimes forgotten that democracy, as outlined by its pillars, is far more encompassing than the simple concept of majority rule. Freedom (of choice, expression, etc) is a quintessential part of democracy. Respect of and accommodation of minorities (a sect, religion, school of thought, or a political view that form a minority group in a society), is another quintessential part. Equality of individuals before the law, regardless of their religious leanings, is also an indispensable part of a democracy.

The question that presents itself here is: is there any theocratic set of laws on the face of the earth that satisfy the above parameters?

I'll volunteer and say: no, there isn't.

Any law that is derived from a scripture is, by default, designed to serve those who wholeheartedly believe in that particular scripture and its religion. The 'others' are more or less considered inferior, or in at best regarded as different, and hence bestowed upon with a different set of rules. This arrangement negates equality and treats individuals on the basis of their religious views (or the lack there of). As far as I'm concerned, marginalizing those who do not subscribe to your world view and calling yourself a democracy is a very unfunny joke. It's no wonder, or a coincidence, that 'minorities rights' is a determining factor in the democracy index. Of course, majority will have to decide (either directly or through representatives) when it comes to the things that require collective agreement. But that doesn't mean that a majority could render a minority inferior or non-equal since they do not conform to the view of the majority. Suggesting that that could happen in a democracy is suggesting that a democracy is innately suicidal and self-negating.

Secularism is the indispensable, inseparable companion of democracy. When you impose the laws of the scripture on people, it will be considered an affront to God when an individual breaks that law, not merely a violation of a law (as it should be deemed). Please be advised that I'm not anti-religion, nor I'm against religious parties participating in a political process (under the condition that they observe the secular components at all time). The question, then, whether I believe in God or not is irrelevant.

Eventually, if a majority decided that their society must adopt a scripture as a legal reference, then it's all good and dandy. By all means go ahead and do it. But please, don't call yourself a democracy, 'Pluralistic Theocracy' or 'Mulla rules by rotation' could be more accurate.

Religion is a wonderful thing. Its beauty is characterized by it being personal and spiritual and private. Religion is best practiced at Churches and Mosques. Let's keep it that way.

Change of Plan

2010-09-27T14:23:00.002+04:00

Men in suits and sunglasses trudged along the pavement, weary expressions on their faces. Even though this was the start of the business week, the general mood wasn’t overly enthusiastic. But the guy with the scruffy beard, for all practical appearances, didn’t look like he was working that day. As he stood still under a glorious morning sun, looking across the road at the source of his momentary pause. She stood with her hand poised over the parking ticket machine, dropping coins and pressing buttons. Under the white of her exposed upper arm, he could see the perfect curve emblematic of full natural breasts. Her abdomen clung to her shirt in a smooth, imperceptible rise. It was the thing that struck him the most, and her back-lit figure accentuated the perfection of this bend all the way down to her hips. Like two curvy sand dunes traversing a magnificent sunset, joining arms to form a scene even when both of them stood at disparate distances from the spectator.

In this case, how far, the man with the scruff couldn’t tell.

He soon found out when she turned and walked a few steps further from him and dropped a ticket on her dashboard. As she walked back again in his direction, apparently heading to her work place, she looked up in a puzzled bewilderment. The distance between her two proverbial sand dunes was disproportionately small. For any other guy, this manly frame would have invoked a misogynistic joke or an indignant dismissal, but for him it was a huge turn on.

He crossed the road and walked over to her car. He glanced stealthily at the expiry time on the ticket placed neatly on the dashboard and proceeded to his work.

The next day.

The man with the scruff was up late this morning. His work allowed for flexible timing. He could report anytime as long as he closed his target. And unlike struggling salesmen, this guy had a secure client base and could afford to be an hour late to work and dress in modest clothing. Not that this diminished his sex appeal, he knew he had the looks and the physique. If the woman’s stunning figure conjured up an image of sand dunes, his toned body looked -he hoped- like convoluted, hardened volcanic rocks.

He came back this morning to see her car in the same parking lot. He didn’t have any business in the area. He was supposed to be somewhere else, attending the needs of other customers. He came back here only for her. He knew from checking the expiry time yesterday that she most probably worked around that area. And that she’d certainly be back at that time to put in a new ticket. Routine. He’d have a chance for another encounter. Maybe this time he’d introduce himself, or maybe concoct something to get her attention.

The man -who still had a couple of days worth beard on- waited and waited. The expiry time came and went and she didn’t turn up.

Maybe she got busy. He thought. Stuck in a meeting or something. The absent bear their excuses with them. I’ll wait for a few minutes longer.

As the man waited under the blazing noon sun, he got more irritated and his eyebrow furrowed in annoyance. Beads of sweat started rolling down from his forehead down his sunglasses. He wiped them with a kerchief and put them back on, a smile spreading across his face.

The parking inspector took out the tiny electronic machine from one of the giant pouches on his uniform and worked the touch-screen. A moment later a fine receipt rolled out of the slot and was dully placed on the windshield of the woman’s car.

After all, you never know what lies at the dark swathes between the dunes in a desert-scape.

Time to Face The Music...

2010-09-26T19:02:00.005+04:00

Sometimes I get to thinking about bleak future scenarios. In one of those I picture myself as a big shot businessman or a hot shit hip hop dancer. Nothing bleak about that, but then the cosa nostra interferes in the vision and they kidnap me for ransom.

From then on I’m not sure what happens (in the vision), mainly because I’ve not been kidnapped before. Secondly because all the hostages I’ve seen in movies were women. Crying their eyes dry and their throats coarse. I fancy myself a tough guy who wouldn’t be intimated by mobs.

Oh yeah.

One thing is for sure, though. I’d certainly not be sending you guys coded/ciphered messages about my whereabouts though my dumb abductors.

Because you, with all do respect, suck at deciphering messages and solving riddles.

Here goes the answer to my previous post (the lyrics from the song, followed by the relevant clue embedded in the post):

There may be trouble ahead,
Frank looked forward to all the trouble and challenges that lie ahead that day.

But while there's music, and moonlight, and love and romance.
Nancy's face resembles a full moon. And music was mentioned more than once.

Let's face the music, and dance!
The guard was swaying in a pantomime dance....

Before the fiddlers have fled..
The self lock system should be engaged before the robbers have fled.

Before they ask us to come up with the bills.
The old lady was wondering how she'd be able to pay her bills.

And while we still have got the chance.
No clue on this line.

Let's face the music and dance....

Soon, we'll be without the moon.
Again, Nancy's face.

Humming a different tune.
Frank hummed his own sweet tune.

and then,
there maybe tears drop to shed.
The old lady shed a few tears.

So while there's music, and moonlight, and love, and romance
Let's face the music and dance!

.........................

The song was sung by Frank Sinatra in 1961.
There was a reference to the 60s' era in the first paragraph.

And as you could see from the video below, the song is exactly 3 minutes long.
The time that had elapsed between Nancy's checking of her watch, 10:51, and Frank's, 10:54, is 3 minutes.

Nancy is Frank Sinatra's first wife.

Enjoy the music!

The Daring Heist

2010-09-24T00:11:00.002+04:00

The woman wore tight skirt and had a shiny black hair that dropped to her slim shoulders. She walked into the marbled hall of the bank with a confident stride and headed straight to the counter. Nancy’s hair-do would have caused a stir at some other era but, this being the 60s, nobody paid attention. She pulled a form from a stack, stepped aside, and furrowed in concentration as she pretended to be filling numbers, while her mind did a quick assessment of the surrounding.

OK, the guard at the door was pacing across the entrance, swaying in a pantomime dance to a song in his head, not paying close attention to anything but his shiny boots. Not that Nancy looked suspicious, her angelic face resembled a full bright moon and could disarm the national guards if she wanted it to.

There appeared to be two other customers at a corner lounge, being entertained by what seemed to be a senior investment executive.

The counter was four feet high and built of marble.

There were three employees behind the counter: two tellers at the front and another one who sat a little to the back and appeared to be handling forms passed along to her by the tellers to check. One teller had a ‘counter closed’ plaque in front of him. And was preoccupied with counting and rubber-banding rolls of crisp bank notes. The other had three customers waiting in line, the one in the front an old lady who looked like she’d forgotten how to count, and whenever she was prodded by the teller to hurry up and finish she‘d place her elbows on the counter and shed a few tears…”how am I supposed to withdraw enough money to pay my bills when you keep distracting me, son?”

Nancy checked her watch.

Beyond the counter was a partition of frosted glass and wooden frame that ran along the entire breadth of the building. She knew from pouring over the blueprints of the building with her associates that beyond the partition is a corridor that fed into offices in the back, and led to the underground vault through a stairway at one end, and a guarded back exit (equipped with alarm pad) at the other.

What appeared to be a courier slid a door of frosted glass open and walked into the working area behind the counter. He methodically placed a load of mail on each desk and disappeared where he’d come from.

She checked her watch again.

It was 10:51 AM.

.........................................................

The man who’d written the emergency procedure manual for the bank sat in a coffee shop across the street from the pacing guard. It was a sunny and glorious morning. But Frank was weather proof, no amount of sun shine or rain could distract his mind from whatever it was occupied with. His thought processing didn’t work through moods, but rather ran on the basis of events and developments, and he surely looked forward to the events that will be unfolding today, and all the trouble and challenges that lie ahead. Frank was the toughest, most feared and most trusted man in town. Qualities that helped the business of his security firm sky rocket. As he sipped his coffee today, he ran his mind through the relevant section in the manual:

In case of an armed robbery, a suspected arm robbery, or violent actions by a customer or a group of customers that can’t be contained by the security guard, the duty manager shall be notified by a red light alarm on his desk. The red light could be activated by the security guard or any of the employee through concealed switches. Upon spotting the alarm, the manager shall activate the self lock system immediately, preferably before the robbers have fled, and even before intimating law enforcement. The self lock system is irreversible, can only be deactivated by a code known to the Sheriff and the branch manager from outside after bringing the situation inside the bank under control. A piece of music will be played through the public address system of the bank to sooth the occupants of the besieged building. The music selection is left to the discretion of the manager……

Frank sipped his coffee and looked at his watch, humming his own sweet tune.

It was 10:54 AM.

.........................................................

No no no...... This isn't another short story. I just wonder if my dear readers will be able to guess the song the wise manager had selected to be played during emergencies.

And yes, there are enough clues in there.... Where are the music gurus?

The Man Who Shaved His Legs

2010-09-19T17:25:00.002+04:00

My Friend James from Atlanta, Georgia, had chosen to shave his legs (yep, with a razor) as an assignment for his Women Studies' course. He kindly gave me the permission to repost his experience with photos. He might also pop in to answer questions and debate with ya'll. I salute James and his courage to carry out this project. It's high time we examine the gender issues we take for granted.

Enough of my babble, here we go:

For the gender project assignment, I couldn’t really decide what to do. As a man who identifies as a full-fledged feminist, and has done so well before this class, it was hard for me to find something that would put me outside of my comfort zone. I already don’t believe that masculine and feminine are even labels that we should embrace, as I tried emphatically showing the very first day by standing in the middle of the chalkboard. If I want to dance ballet, it should not be considered feminine; likewise, if a woman wants to play football, she shouldn’t be considered a Tom Boy. I’ve worn dresses; I’ve worn high heels; I’ve worn skirts; I’ve worn makeup; I’ve worn bras; my ears are pierced (although most of those things were done during Rocky Horror or Powder Puff). The one thing I hadn’t done, surprisingly, is shave my legs.
This change seemed to be the most appropriate for me because a.) I’ve already stepped out many times, as I’ve stated, and b.) I didn’t think anyone else would do this. I also decided to do this because lately I’ve read articles regarding women and shaving their pubic region. In today’s society, it is a guarantee that women will shave their legs, or else they’ll be seen as unkempt, gross, dirty, lesbian, or even the f-word (in the pejorative sense, of course). The goal posts are moving even farther and now women are expected to be totally clean-shaven in the pubic area, especially with the growing spread of internet pornography for what women should look like naked (I happen to be a “sex-positive” feminist, in that some pornography is ok, but that’s for another time). Although there’s some pressure on men to also be shaven, in my own experiences, I’ve seen it to be more of the man’s choice rather than pressure from his partners. In the case for women, I believe it to be the opposite. This seemed like low-hanging fruit just ready to be grabbed.

Before the day started, I didn’t expect much. People usually don’t look down when you’re walking; they look straight into your eyes—or your chest if you’re a woman. So with respect to other people, I didn’t expect to turn any heads or raise any eyebrows. As for me, I didn’t have many expectations about the entire experience, either. I just thought that it was going to be an annoyance more than anything, as I’ve frequently heard women complain about shaving. The women I interact with regularly are also feminists, so I expected positive reactions from them.
Sure enough, as the day went on, I didn’t even notice one person who looked at my legs or said something about them. I specifically wore shorts to highlight that they were shaved, too. It took a surprisingly long time to shave them, but I suppose if you’ve never done it before and it’s long that it won’t take a short while. At the end of the day I took pictures and posted them on my Facebook account to see many of my girlfriends comment approvingly. No guys really commented, which sort of surprised me. I half-expected some sort of homophobic statement from at least one guy and didn’t get it. Perhaps they didn’t notice the photo album.
What did poke out to me, though, was that if a woman decided to do the opposite of me, as in not shave her legs, I guarantee that heads would be turned. So while I didn’t expect anyone to really notice, it was a poke at gender not just because men traditionally do not shave their legs, but for the gross hypocrisy of what would happen if women didn’t do it. Sure, some people might make fun of the guy for shaving his legs, but a woman would be treated as an outcast.

As to gender in and of itself, I believe almost all of it to be a social construct. There are some biological differences in the brain, to be sure, but they’re very small and trivial at best. I was brought up as a boy, and I know that throughout my childhood I was constantly being hammered by male-affirmative messages and biases, and I think it's obvious that girls were also hit with lots of their gender-specific cultural influences.For example, a few months ago I saw in a Toys ‘R Us catalog listing children’s telescopes and microscopes with three different colors: pink, black and gray. The pink one, however, was the weakest in strength and ability. Obviously, a social message is being conditioned for how people think. A color that’s known to society as feminine and girly means you aren’t as concerned about utility of the equipment in science, and are more concerned about appearances. People often wonder why there aren’t as many women in engineering and science—my discipline—so the first thought was that women simply couldn’t handle that hard thinking stuff. It couldn’t be all of these gender roles being shoved into our faces since we were young children, not at all.
I think the reason for a lot of the arguments regarding social vs. biological is comfort and laziness. There is inequality in this world, and it’s just easier and takes less effort to just say “It’s obvious why things are the way they are, WE’RE BORN DIFFERENT!” I think a lot of these biological arguments also stem from the social conditioning aspect. For example, women are thought to understand emotions better than men simply because they’re more compassionate and empathetic. After all, in public policy polling, women are usually more anti-war, empathize with the plight of the poor more, and incidentally also vote more Democratic. So it must be our biological differences, right?
No, it is the result of social conditioning to pay attention to these things more. Women being more in tune with their emotions could be true in the sense that our environments often remind women they should be good at it and remind men they should be bad at it. That doesn’t mean that men are actually bad at it, but it is society reminding us that “this is how things are, so just accept it.” To wit, when women are taught that men are “hard-wired” to deal with math better than they are, rather than trying to work against this stereotype they simply accept it because how on Earth can they fight their own biology? You know, if women tried thinking too hard, their brains would overheat and they would get hysterical, or something.

So you have a perpetual sexist cycle going on here: there aren’t many women in hard scientific fields; biology prone people say it’s because men are better or that women aren’t interested because it’s how they’re hard-wired; women believe they’re hard-wired to fail at science and become disillusioned with trying harder, basically “proving” the biological argument; and then the cycle repeats.
This cycle needs to end, and it starts with people throwing aside this ridiculous argument that gender comes solely, or even mostly, from biology.

Qabqab - (a short story by Dubai Jazz)

2010-09-16T20:28:00.011+04:00

“You understand what you have to do?”

Sharshar, a middle-aged man with a balding head and flabs of barely biodegradable fat, an aura of malevolence about him, glowered at his guest, Nibras, with eyes full of menace.

He shook his head impatiently and continued: “You have no choice but the one I’m giving you. Get over your self pity; you already lost your dignity, why not get paid in return…?”

Nibras looked on in despair. What the evil man was asking for wasn’t impossible; it was just immoral and humiliating.

But Sharshar was right. Nibras had no choice but to acquiesce. He had never thought he’d see himself in such an impossible situation in a life that, otherwise, was as plain and clear as the conscience of a blue sky on a sunny day...

***

Qabqab was a remote and semi-isolated mountain place. Life here was simple and unpretentious. The residents connected with the pristine nature around them. They cultivated the scarce fields where the lands were flat enough for basic agricultural use. Farming was a job that guaranteed self-sufficiency, it produced enough to sustain oneself but not enough to trade and barter. But self-sufficiency was what most of the content people of Qabqab sought. And so farming for them trumped any other interest. It also made them travel less, and mingle with their neighboring villages even less frequently. Politics did not figure in Qabqab’s social life. There was no hierarchy of power. Disputes, as rare as they might be, were settled amicably. When veteran travelers and rovers sat center-stage at the village square to talk about famine, war and political dissent and events that took place elsewhere, the residents of Qabqab listened in amazement. For them, these things were inconceivable and unheard of.

But this voluntary isolation from the outside world also made them more susceptible to superstitions and mythical beliefs. Very little knowledge had made it through the beaten trails to the village over the years. The wise elderly were as knowledgeable as their limited oral heritage allowed. The youth, if they at all traveled, would usually seek material pleasures and conveniences. As a result, there was a collective misconception about knowledge in Qabqab. The happy, simple-minded villagers couldn’t distinguish the unknown from the unknowable. They thought all knowledge was sacred, and that it took an individual of superior mystical powers to possess it. They couldn’t seek knowledge, even when there had been jarring and most urgent of questions to be answered. They just kept them to themselves, waiting—and hoping- that one day a man with gratifying answers will appear in their midst.

Sharshar had seen this. He spotted the demand, like a sharp-eyed market analyzer. He smelled the silent agony and the distress of ‘his people’. And being a realist, he identified the flaw in their thinking process. He believed the only way to relieve them from their misery was to enhance the ill-informed part of their minds with more superstitions. He decided that he’d be the one to do it. He will be their ‘savior’. He knew how to handle people, and the more he’ll excel at scamming them, the more marketing they’ll do for him.

Self-perpetuating success.

Sharshar had gone on a trip. Had been away for while. Pretending he’d joined an expedition to a town where knowledge and schools were in abundance. He said he’d met a gifted old man while attending a forum. The scholar had agreed to teach him a secret craft after he’d spotted in him great reserves of talent………….

In reality, though, Sharshar spent most of that time holed up at a dingy lodging home in a nearby village, living under an alias and a moderate disguise. Plotting his business plan (scam, really). Poring over the material he’d compiled about the history of fraud: handwritten scrolls authored by the masters of deceit, obtained through underworld contacts. For pleasure, he’d mingle with ex-convicts at the watering hole up the alley, or visit the whorehouse and talk with the working girls for hours.

When he was finished, he’d destroyed all evidence, packed and took a circuitous route back to Qabqab. He’d hung a shingle on his front door, ostensibly waiting for the business to pick up. For those who enquired, (and even those who didn’t) he’d claim he’d become a member in a secret underground society of illuminatis that simply knew too much about the world to be out in the open…..

No one caught on the fact that Sharshar was readily prepared to share the story of the ‘secret’ society with everyone and anyone.

***

However, Sharshar wasn’t merely sitting on his hands. He knew his business needed expediting. A stimulus. And this was why he invited Nibras to his house today; to ‘persuade’ him. As a professional scammer, blackmail wasn’t a stranger to Sharshar’s pool of talent. He knew the young man was in trouble. And it showed on his face and his trembling hands. His finances were down in the cesspool, and he got himself hooked on rum. (all the better, thought sharshar, it’s always easier to control someone who is already out of control.)

It’d all started when a shipment of that distilled beverage was brought in to unsuspecting Qabqab. Nibras drank and drank. Feeling funny and lightheaded and happy. Nobody told him about the erosion of self-control. He drank himself to bankruptcy. Now his life was in shambles, his little farming business crumbling, and his wife about to flee.

He really had no choice. He needed the money and he needed it fast. There was no one who could provide him with a loan on such short notice without significant collaterals.

Nibras nodded, got up and walked away in a defeated silence. He stumbled out of the door and hurried unsteadily to his house. Shoulders slumped.

When he recounted to his wife what Sharshar had asked him to do, she sat on the floor and began to sob.

***

ONE YEAR LATER

Sharshar sat happily on a smooth stone ledge, cooling his feet in the stream. He had his little fishing rod with him. He wasn’t into fishing; he just enjoyed the peace and quiet up here in the mountain. The seclusion of the place helped to sooth his senses, and provided him with the time to take stocks and pat himself on the back. Sharshar was a content man today, he reflected: the business was flourishing. He now had three assistants. And no one in the village seemed to have caught on his scam. He felt protected. He felt revered.

‘A water stream follows the path of least resistance’, he now recalled a physical law he’d heard once. How ambitious!

His smug thoughts were interrupted by a rustling sound from behind. He turned to examine the source. Oh, No. Damn Him. Not now. Through a narrow opening in the thicket, a lone figure emerged, his sack of tools tethered to his back with sturdy ropes. He waved a greeting to Sharshar and then went about his business. The intruder, Sharshar had learned, was dubbed ‘Mr. Think’ by the residents of Qabqab. (the name derived from his habit of asking his assistants to always think before acting.) But in his presence he was always addressed as ‘chief’, an affront to his down-to-earth mannerism. He was the youngest son of a well-to-do farmer, and he’d left the village at a young age. Coming back years later with few stories to tell but with plenty of ideas to carry out useful projects, and with the experience and the knowledge to do them well.

In the few months Mr. Think had been here, he invented a brilliant trash collecting system; he introduced the concept of terraced fields; and he also came up with this intricate network of water aqueducts and storage tanks. Tapping the water stream and the occasional flood gorges, ensuring irrigation for the earth and water supply for residences.

Sharshar never felt easy around Mr. Think. He knew if there were one person he couldn’t deceive in this town it’d be him. He kept him in his peripheral vision, always watching out.

He was also aware that real knowledge is his ultimate enemy.

Mr. Think finished checking and servicing his system and disappeared with the easiness of stealth warrior.

***

Later in the day, Nibras was startled when an associate of Mr. Think showed up at his house, extending an invitation to visit as soon as possible. A little while later Nibras was knocking on Mr. Think’s office door. The chief himself received him with a firm handshake and a reassuring smile, he lead him inside and they sat on low cushions. They exchanged pleasantries for a while and then Mr. Think cut right to the subject that prompted the urgent summon.

“Tell me, Nibras. How did it happen?”

“How did what happen, chief?”

“Nibras, we’ve known each other since we were little children. I know you are a straight and honest man, but…” Mr. Think briefly nodded towards the tumblers of grape juice between them, ”Everyone slips. We all have our shortcomings. But it’s an entirely different ball game when our weaknesses are exploited by evil men like Sharshar”.

He saw a puzzled look on Nibras’s face.

“Ah, ‘different ball game’, that’s an expression I’d learned when I was away somewhere….”

They both smiled.

“Is that why you summoned me here, Chief? You want to learn about my business with Sharshar?”

Mr. Think considered this, he said:

“No, I didn’t summon you. This is merely invitation. And yes, something doesn’t fit quite right with this guy. And your entanglement with him troubles me a lot”

“But why now, Chief? You’ve been here for six months and now you’re curious about him all of the sudden, why?”

“Because,” Mr. Think said, “I was up at the stream this morning and I saw him there. His eyes were bright with malice. I know a look of territorial rivalry when I see one. I worry that we’d wake up one day to see our water system sabotaged. This guy, seems to me, is capable of anything…”, he paused for a moment. Nibras winced at the reminder of how evil Sharshar could get. He was also impressed that Mr. Think had figure that out already.

Mr. Think continued, “your involvement in this affair is vital, Nibras, When I got back to my office I made few discreet enquiry. Yours seem to be the first breakthrough’ case for Sharshar. And”, Mr. Think stopped here for emphasis, “I’m fairly certain he blackmailed you into helping him. The thing that I want to know is, how?”

Nibras looked terrified. He started sweating, held his head in his hands, but then composed himself and said:

“You’re right, Chief. The whole disappearance thing was a farce. I was supposed to hide away for few days up in the woods, in a place that Sharshar had prepped for me to live in for a while. And then at a certain date and time I was to go to a prearranged location and lie beneath the shadow of huge walnut tree….” Nibras paused here, unable to complete. Mr. Think did that for him:

“After your disappearance, your wife went ballistic. She was distressed and quite few of your relatives and neighbors went out looking for you to no avail. She was then ‘advised’ to approach a certain man starting up a new business; a man with psychic, supernatural powers. He promised her to find you after a little consultation with his…. whatever he commiserates with...how am I doing so far?”

Nibras, who was studying his feet the whole time, just nodded.

“Sharshar then claimed to have learned your location and he lead a convoy of village dignitaries to a certain walnut tree. Of course, when the word spread about the possible search, volunteers joined, eager to help.

“When they’d got there you were found at the exact same location Sharshar had indicated . Which, it seems, mesmerized the crowd and made Sharshar the hero of the day……. The rest, I believe, is history.”

There was an uneasy silence for a moment. The Chief cleared his throat, he said:

“Do you know what else I’d learned today?”

“What?”

“There’s been two other disappearances over the past year, ever since our infamous friend launched his business. And you know what’s curious? the two other cases were concluded more or less like yours.”

Nibras didn’t utter a word. He was still terrified and confused.

“My friend, we’re not here to examine your past. I know that you’d bravely sobered up and your life is back on track. But what I need to know, and I need to know it now, is how he got to you, Nibras, how?!”

Nibras was lost in his own world; he wasn’t accustomed to manipulation or lying. His face was colorless and his eyes lost their focus. He exhaled loudly and brought his face up, looked into Mr. Think’s eyes and began to talk.

***

Lanky boys scurried about the square grooming it for that weeks' gathering. Dust rose as hard mats were unrolled and pulled into place. A mood of festivity hung in the air. The elderly and the veteran travelers sat where they were supposed to, in the elevated part of the square where they could be seen and heard. Every now and again, ululations reverberated from where the women sat, confused infants looking out timidly from the grasp of their embrace.

And then silence fell over the village as if a giant invisible hand turned everyone mute.

For unlike every other gathering, Mr. Think showed up now with his group of assistants and helpers, sturdy men who had volunteered to support his ventures after the village folks realized their tremendous benefits. The surprise of his appearance registered on every face.

Then silence broke with more ululations and heavy applause. Mr. Think- who may had considered gratuitous socialization a waste of time and had concentrated on his work instead- was however always welcome when he attended an event like this.

However, not everyone was pleased at seeing him. Sharshar's look of hate and contempt from where he sat with his assistants couldn't be disguised. He was always present at the gatherings, they presented him with the chance to consolidate his public relations and reaffirm his status as the sole psychic in Qabqab. Mr. Think realized that his fun for the evening had already begun.

Without further ado, Mr. Think walked into the middle of the ad hoc auditorium unbidden. He smiled and greeted his people and started speaking with the tone of an entertaining yet earnest story teller:

"Folks, there's absolutely no need in this world for a person to be ashamed of his past. We all do stupid mistakes every now and again. Even I, a person who you regard as knowledgeable; I've made quite a few blunders in my life. I'd hurt people, broke hearts, let down myself and my family, and lost financially in many foolish experiments.

"The real shame, in my humble opinion, is for a man to have to live with shame discreetly and let it eat up at him. And to allow it and its consequences to harm his life and others'.

"One such man is among us today. He'll be speaking to you shortly, but before we get to that, allow me to call on Mr. Sharshar to join me here. Mr. Sharshar, please grace me with your presence."

Sharshar's reaction was a mixture of perplex and rage. But he recovered quickly and stood up and walked the few steps into the fray.

"Mr. Sharshar, I'm personally quite intrigued by your capabilities. Please tell me, how many missing persons have you helped locate this past year?"

Sharshar would have loved to wring the neck of this smartass. But he was aware he should play along, public disgrace was nothing short of suicidal to him.

"Three...hmm..four. Wait, three. Yes. That's it"

"In what mental state were they when they were found?"

"What do you mean mental state?"

"Were they, for example, suffering memory loss? Were they experiencing madness?"

"Hell do I know? I just help find them. My job ends there"

"Surely, you'd agree Mr. Sharshar, that a sane and discerning person wouldn't get lost that easily? there are always ways of finding your way back. Our folks are quite adept at using stars and other celestial objects to aid their sense of direction."

"How could I know..."

"In fact," Mr. Think continued, cutting him off, "isn't it true that before last year not a single incident of disappearance occurred except that of a senile man who wandered out and was never found, and that was, what, twenty years ago?"

"Look, I don't know where you're going with this. But you must have forgotten that rum wasn't as popular in our village twenty years ago. All three of those who'd disappeared last year were hopeless drunkards"

"So, you'd describe their state of mind as 'drunk' when they were found? Are you saying their disorientation was due to excessive drinking?"

"Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying"

"Mr. Sharshar", Mr. Think produced a metal container from his pouch, "this is the standard flask that most drinking men in this village use. Wouldn't you agree?"

The villagers were totally entranced by the unfolding dialog before them. Suspense of story telling had never been better. They hung on to every word.

"I guess so. I mean, yes. That's the standard flask that was brought in along with the first shipment of rum, if I recall correctly"

"Did any of the three men have one of these flasks on their person when they were found?"

"I don't know. I mean, people get drunk and throw stuff away. .....may I ask where is this go-"

"Let's assume," said Mr. Think, cutting him again, "that they had this receptacle with them when they wandered out, how long does a man last in a state of drunkenness under the influence of the amount of beverage contained in it?"

"Hell do I know? I don't drink"

"Give me your best guess"

"A day. A two....?"

"Mr. Sharshar, wouldn't you agree that a drinking individual would regain his soberty and sense of direction when the influence wears off? Actually, isn't it right that he or she would then seek to find another drink to quench their thirst and quell their addiction?"

"I'm not sure. What's that got to do with me?"

"Everything Mr. Sharshar. Everything."

Mr. Think turned to his communion and struck the hot iron with decisive resolve in his voice. They were listening now with eagerness of an avid learner.

"Ladies and gentlemen; remember what I had told you earlier about shame and its vicious grip on a man's life. Today we have a chance to relieve a man who'd lived with shame and pain for almost a year. I implore you to listen to him with empathy and to draw your judgments taking into account his overwhelming circumstances.....Mr. Nibras, would you please come forward"

Collective gasps of surprise could be heard as Nibras stepped up and joined the two men on the stage. Mr. Think laid his arm gently and reassuringly on his shoulder as he proceeded to tell his story from the beginning. When he got to the part about Sharshar blackmailing him, the psychic couldn't control his rage, he lunged forward, shouting:

"You little shit... You ungrateful son of a bitch..."

But Mr. Think came prepared for all eventualities. His burly assistants jumped on Sharshar and restrained him and his pathetic minions with no effort. When peace was restored, Mr. Think urged Nibras to continue.

When Nibras was done with his story, the villagers were heaving with anger and disgust; the man who they thought was their comforter and source of relief turned out to be one big balloon of bluff.

Mr. Think took over from Nibras and went on to tell the audience his analysis of Sharshar's scam: how he deceived and lied and manipulated, how he wasn't able to locate one lost person truthfully. He then introduced the other two men who went missing and they told similar stories of blackmail. By the time they were finished, the crowd were ready to lynch Sharshar and his mob.

Mr. Think calmed them down, then turned to Sharshar and spoke with a tone devoid of any vindictiveness:

"We are not into revenge, Mr. Sharshar. But justice must prevail. You're to be expelled from this place and you're not to return under any circumstances. My men will escort you and your sorry entourage to a town big enough so that your scams wouldn't work. You're to keep your mouth shut about the terms of the agreement of extortion you'd enforced upon Mr. Nibras.

"Any violation to any of these conditions will result in my men tracking you down and hauling you back here for a proper prosecution.

"All your possessions will be confiscated, and, by the permission of this honorable meeting, will be used in my projects of infrastructure. Your shop will be converted into a clinic to provide real and genuine help to those suffering from excessive drinking...."

Mr. Think turned to his assistants. "Take him"

The square broke into deafening applause. Dust rose in the air as kids stomped on the ground in jubilation. Women ululated. Nibras's wife emerged through the cloud of dust and joined her husband and Mr. Think in the epicenter of the celebration, a huge grin of relief on her face.

***

The End

A Day in The Life of a Tower Crane

2010-09-08T22:41:00.002+04:00

On the arms of some tower cranes used in construction, there are fluorescent lights placed at a certain intervals. I have always wondered- but never got around to asking- about these lights: what function do they serve, why are they kept lit in the dark? Is it safety, publicity or plain old vanity? Are they meant to warn, to hedge certain dangers, or were they just put there because it seems like the proper thing to do?

A crane operator has by far the most scenic view of a construction site. From his vantage point, always at a higher altitude than the rest of his colleagues, he gets to watch the building going up. He communicates through a walkie-talkie and in sign language, picking up loads from places he may not see, heaving them up, lowering them down. Lifting stacks of cement block, steel rebar or scaffolding rods. Relying on a predetermined arc of rotation. Working his gears with precision and efficiency. It's not within his purview to ensure the load is safely hooked to the tip of his suspended cable. But once he's given the green light, it's his job to move the load from point A to point B. Dancing around with his arms extended. Rising and falling to the rhythm of the work below. Befriending the sun and heavy winds. Keeping a set of binoculars at hand to aid his sharp eyes. Feeling his load, through intuition and experience and training, as the battered seats shudders and jitters beneath him. Coordinating the movements of his eyes and hands and to make sure the load doesn't swing; a swinging load is his first enemy. A full bladder is a close second.

A tower crane grows in height as the building itself grows. A tower crane is the custodian of a new born structure. It's the proprietor of its skeletal growth. Its reassuring presence exudes confidence and inspires hard work. With its three different combinations of linear and radial movements, it's capable of reaching any point in the three-dimensional space of a building. Patting it, caressing it, and feeding it material with the tenderness and care of child rearing.

But for all its enormity and grandiose posture, a tower crane isn't always active. Indeed, the operator enjoys a lot of idle time up there. Hours of heavenly solitude. Vertigo is out of question. Fear of heights unheard of. Long hours. Punctuated by planned bathroom breaks and a quick lunch. The journey up and down the cat ladder isn't something that can be performed frequently, even by fit and eager men.

I wonder if his binoculars ever come to use during these uneventful times. Checking out the vicinity, keeping an eye on fellow cranes nearby. Observing the mundane activities around; laundry being pegged to clotheslines, curtains drawn, balconies washed, flower-beds watered, school buses inching through traffic made of toy cars. Watching the indifferent life of birds, invariably using his arms as a perch. It must be a different perspective from the commanding cabin. Could he ever grow bored? Could he ever long to the life of earthlings? Could he ever grow accustomed to the relentless swiveling of his giant machine, his eyes covering miles and miles of sky and sea and dusty air and bickering humanity at each turn?

After sunset, when natural light dims, it's time to switch off the engines and put the dynamics of this machine to rest. And the operator descends the ladder, his only access to normalcy, gripping the bars with hands used to the delicate handling of gears and levers. It must be nice to have your feet on the grounds again. To be spared the perils of soaring heights and fuzzy physics.

I've been to the cabin of a tower crane today. The view was magnificent. The air smelled different. The passage of time was drawn out, as if the world was standing still. The moment my feet hit the ground again, I had the crazy urge to run. To shout and sing and point out to frowning men how silly they looked like in the grand scheme of things.

And I realized, with a conviction I can't articulate, how it makes perfect sense to keep the lights lit at night, on the arms of a tower crane.

The Yellow Man

2010-09-01T23:15:00.006+04:00

The Yellow Man is quite a distinctive characteristic of my hometown, Aleppo. Nothing distinguishes him from the millions of other people who inhabit the city except his choice of clothing. I’d heard about him before seeing him in person. But a picture is really worth a thousands words. This guy roams downtown Aleppo dressed in a yellow suit, yellow shirt, yellow flat cap, yellow shoes, yellow socks, and holding a yellow rosary. This outfit would never change year round. Would never be added to or subtracted from. Rain or shine, hot or cold, summer or winter. The Yellow Man never stopped being himself. And he'd been keeping up the tradition since the early '80s.

Abu Zakkoor before Ramadan

There had been gossips and wild speculations about his occupation. All involving nefarious affiliations and unsightly people. Some, especially kids, were scared of him and kept their distance. But in general, the guy didn't bothered anyone and just kept up his yellow facade at all times.

So it doesn’t come as a surprise, given his popularity, that when this guy makes a radical revision to his outfit it becomes a news article. Abu Zakkoor, as it turned out, owns in the excess of 400 yellow suits of more or less the same color gradient and fabric. Complete with accessories. He decided, however, that for the month of Ramadan he should change into the traditional Galabeya (a traditional Arab dress for men, which in the Gulf is called a dishdash). Complete with the Yellow turban and, one would hope, a more functional yellow rosary. The refurbishment helps him pray the Taraweeh (the post-Isha prayers during Ramadan) more comfortably, as he claims. It’s also more adaptive to the sweltering heat in the month of August.

Abu Zakkoor during Ramadan

Upon asking him about his real job, the Yellow Man said: “I receive a stipend from certain groups in return for communicating the grievances of the poor and downtrodden citizens to the proper government officials in Damascus. If any citizen had been wronged we hope he’d come forward without hesitation because there are people who are prepared to help him.”

Does self publicity get better than this?

PR experts behold. You’ve been owned by a man in a yellow garb.

Marking US Pullout From Iraq With Poetry

2010-08-31T23:50:00.005+04:00

To an Iraqi infant

By Sinan Antoon

do you know
that your mother's nipples
are dry bones?
that her breasts
are bursting
with depleted uranium?

do you know
that the womb's window
overlooks
a confiscated land?

do you know
that your tomorrow
has no tomorrow?
that your blood
is the ink
of new maps?

do you know
that your mother is weaving
the slowness of her moments
into an elegy?
And she is already
mourning you?

don't be shy!
your funeral is over
the tears are dry
everyone's gone

come forward!
it's only a short way
don't be late
your grave is looking
at its watch!

don't be afraid!
We'll arrange your bones
which ever way you want
and leave your skull
like a flower
on top

come forward!
your many friends await
there are more every day
. . .
your ghosts
will play together

come on!

________________________________________________

P.S. For the fifth time in seven years, Iraq is celebrating 'independence'.

Paul The Octopus

2010-08-28T22:53:00.004+04:00

Remember Paul The Octopus? well, if you haven't heard of him already, you certainly haven't missed much. Wise old Paul was a headline news for much of the the final rounds of the Fifa world cup, South Africa. Widely acclaimed for predicting the outcome of Germany's matches correctly. His psychic powers drew a global praise and fascination. And while there was a tinge of humor and lightheartedness throughout the entire affair, people were left to their own devices to determine whether Paul was the second coming of Christ or just a sad, exploited and confined cephalopod.

His fame was destined to die out, though. Not because his supernatural powers were proven null and void, but because his owners decided he needed to retire. And did so on the 12th of July this year, right after the conclusion of the world cup (according to his wikipedia page). One would have to wonder why. It makes sense that an invertebrate animal with such capabilities could be of much use to the well being of humanity. Sure, his magical purview couldn't be limited to footballs matches, could it? I mean, if it's really genuine, then there's no reason why we can't make use of him to predict things that are more significant. Anything that could be ascribed a binary outcome, a Yes or No, could be worked out by good old Paul. Just imagine the possibilities: the German government could decide whether to raise interest rates or not (by printing huge cards with symbolic impressions of both propsals instead of flags), or whether cutting taxes would be better to navigate the EU through recession, or not. Or whether to cut down social security benefits, or not. Or whether to amend immigration laws...etc.. All these pressing issues that are open to possibilities and error margins could comfortably be determined by the octopus.

However, these fantastic prospects were nipped in the buds by his owners when they went ahead and made him retire. How awful, unproductive and myopic of them.

But of course, we know better than that. We know the real reason behind the abrupt end of the guy's career, at the peak of his performance and popularity, was because he's an ineffective fraud (or his owners are, to be more accurate). Especially given how, at least, his owners could have benefited hugely from him had he been for real.

There is a foundation known as the James Randi Educational Foundation. They have a $ 1 million paranormal challenge that nobody had won yet. (it's been out there for decades, although the bounty had been less than a million at times). The owners of the octopus could have won the million easily. All the Randi foundation requires is a test with a scientific methodology in a controlled environment, to weed out interfering factors and chances of human interference. For a demonstration, watch this video. Although it's a bit long (18 minutes), it's most revealing as far as purported 'psychic powers' are concerned. And it'd also give you a glimpse of how Randi himself conducts his neutral and unbiased scientific testing.

Octopi have an average life span of 3 years (though it varies according to species and habitat). Paul was reportedly hatched back in Jan 2008. So, if things went by the average for him, as things are wont to do in life, he's going to die next year.

Or maybe he'd beat the odds?

Parking Lot Shenanigans

2010-08-28T18:16:00.002+04:00

I have a colleague who drives the same car model as mine. We park facing each other in the parking lot adjoining our office building. And since his favorite parking spot and mine are arranged that way, we’re kind of obliged to look at each other in the morning, when our working hours begin, but more often in the evenings (or afternoons in Ramadan), when it’s time to flee.

Since Ramadan coincides with the pinnacle of summer’s fury this year, most cars left parked in unshaded areas for prolonged time would be as hot as frying pans by 3:00 PM. A car would literally be baking in the sun. As a general law of physics, metals are the most absorbing of heat. Touching the hood or the body is highly not recommended. And it’s also luckily unnecessary. Door handles, on the other hand, are made of plastic and thus less prone to get heated. What is left to worry about are the car seat itself and, to a degree, the steering wheel. And of course, the interior weather system of the car, which is invariably inferno-like. However, once the AC is turned on for a couple of minutes the car would be cooled and the heat dissipated.

So if you’re smart enough about it, there are very few hot surfaces to touch with your bare hands before you put the key into ignition and fire up (pun not intended). And with practice and repetition you’d learn to perform these movement deftly: unlock the car with remote, pry the door open with a single finger (usually the middle), keep the door open with your shoed foot, take a deep breath, plunge into the caressing oven of the driver seat…….and drive away.

That’s how I do it anyway. Deftly.

It’s a different story with my colleague, though. For him it’s a ritual. A ceremony. A sequence of sophisticated procedures.

First, his windows are all tinted. Mine aren’t.

Secondly, he uses sun screens/shields. You know the kind that would spring open into a circle of vinyl fabric and protect your dashboard from the unrelenting sun if placed beneath the windshield.

So what he usually does everyday, under the watchful eyes of yours truly, is that he’d unlock the car apprehensively, open the door with little fingers of both hands (thinking, probably, that nerve ends there are smaller), swing the door open, remove sun screen, lean in inside and put key in ignition and fire up, turn AC on, leave the door almost closed, and then wait for couple of minutes while his car cools.

Then he’d look around, cup both ass-cheeks in his hands, turn his back toward the open door, and then gingerly lower his backside unto the driver seat. And then’d wince, sitting on his hands for couple of minutes, looking around. He’d then pull his hands from underneath him gradually. Once they’re free he’d perform a careful massage and then handle the steering wheel with care and disgust.

The above routine usually lasts 5-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting there in my car, AC turned on, laughing my butt out. Whenever he becomes aware of my amusement (not so often since his regimen requires concentration), I’d smile and wave and drive off.

In fairness to him though, there are other factors that might justify the disparity in handling a hot car; I’m always wearing jeans, which has great heat-insulation property, while he wears thin summer pants.

No wonder he’d cup his buttocks. They’d be medium rare by the time he's home.

A Short Story By Dubai Jazz (Fiction)

2010-08-27T00:53:00.004+04:00

The innocent bystander saw the convoy, a speeding column of humvees and armored 4x4s, swerve at the corner and head north through the square. Burly men in sunglasses could be seen through the open windows of the vehicles. An assortment of weapons, all shiny and glinting in the sun, held up by their muscly arms, stuck out of the windows as they scanned the roadsides. The traffic up ahead was thick, and looked even more unbearable in the hot and musty weather. A tire screeched. A car door shot violently. Someone yelled an obscenity. The air, even in this expansive public square, was electric with tension and sweat.

A bullet was fired. Or maybe a street vendor dropped a copper receptacle on the cobbled pavement. And then all hill broke loose. Body count would later indicate seventeen innocent bystanders were killed.

...............................

Later, the man behind it all was being interviewed, in a funny arrangement they call a ‘hearing’. Elected men in suits told him the aforesaid incident is under investigation by the bureau. Meanwhile, has he got anything to say to vindicate himself? And he talked. He was asked, then, by a suited man who seemed to be on his payroll, how many diplomatic protectees were harmed under his watch? And he answered proudly: None. Zero.

...............................

He was again interviewed, this time on Charlie Rose. He oozed with innocence and professional courtesy. He spoke about the non-violent side of his enterprise; teaching warriors how to drive (did you know driving accidents were the second most common COD amongst warriors? How depressing), survival in the wilderness courses, rock climbing courses…etc…

...............................

Press reports had surfaced about the spiraling rate of piracy around the horn region. The horn, being relatively close to the combat zones, featured a potential business expansion for the men the innocent bystander had seen before. And sure enough, more press report later emerged about protection of carriers and maritime routes being provided by the men with the sunglasses and the state-of-the-art weaponry. The man behind it all was getting frustrated with hearings, lawsuits, and legal harassment back home. He wanted a new home.

...............................

A home close to potential operating theaters. Where he’d be close to his business ventures. Away from the press. Away from horny attorneys. A place to worship. And liberal malls for the girls.

...............................

Residents hoped that, given the infamy and the dedication of their new neighbor next door, driving standards around town might at last begin to improve.....

Why I Run?

2010-08-21T16:00:00.006+04:00

My friend and fellow blogger Micheline wrote a very nice and passionate post titled “Why I Run?”. Having been a regular runner for three years myself, her post prodded me to jot down my own personal thoughts and observations about running.

In my humble opinion, jogging is the best aerobic exercise. Period. Forget swimming, power-walking, rope-jumping, or cycling; jogging simply trumps them all. Even if your sport’s guru or physical trainer tells you otherwise.

There are health circumstances, - e.g. weak joints or obesity - that could preclude people from jogging. In that case it simply is not for you. But if you don’t have these circumstances, it is a borderline crime in my books that you don’t jog.

General jogging stereotypes I’d heard from friends, acquaintances, the general public, and (even) the media over the years:

1- It is for athletes:

Bullshit. As I said above, I’ve been jogging for three years and I’m nowhere near an athletic level. In fact, my record times are embarrassing in comparison to other regular joggers. And those other joggers’ numbers are even more embarrassing compared with professional athletes.

2- It is a nuisance:

So what? Is there anything rewarding in the world that doesn’t involve hard work? Let me tell you about my first jogging session three years ago: I couldn’t keep up for more than 5 minutes. So you do have to work yourself up to a sustainable plateau. Gradually and persistently.

3- It makes you muscular:

This is a popular theme among girls. Which is also a total myth. Jogging doesn’t even develop your lower body muscles. If you don’t believe me, go out tonight and stalk the girls running around Safa park, they’ve all got nice figures. ;-)

4- A partner is necessary for motivation:

I think this may vary from one person to another, but generally speaking, very few regular joggers run in packs. In fact, a partner could be quite a nuisance: you’d have to synchronize your timings to his/her and then you’d have to be of the same fitness level ..etc..

I've been my only motivation all along. It’s true that I probably need the exercise more than other people (being a heavy smoker), but the need itself was never the sole propeller. Look at it this way, jogging has its own momentum, once you reach a plateau whereby you can run nonstop for 30-45 minutes, you’re not going to stop easily.

Now on the other hand, jogging with a friend every now and then is quite motivating. You could both compare notes and, in a sense, celebrate your superior fitness. :-)

5- I need a trainer:

No you don’t. If you’re deemed medically fit, all you need is a pair of good running shoes. (if you have a peculiar walk, it’s recommended you visit a sport shop where you can have your gait analyzed and special shoes tailor made). In my humble opinion, trainers are way overrated.

Heck, they can’t even agree on which is the best way to run.

This trainer, for instance, tells you to keep your arms by your side and move them straight ahead with your pace (not from side to side):

While this one suggests otherwise:

See what I’m saying?

(for the record, I personally happen to feel more comfortable jogging the way illustrated in the second video)

6- It’s a form of torture! Have you ever seen a happy jogger? Exactly!

This is a popular joke, and joggers have a great sense of humor and could take some mockery. And hey, nobody claimed that we, joggers, are showered with bliss in the 30-45 minutes we exercise. But on the other hand, let's talk about the happiness we feel in the remaining 23 hours of the day. :-)

Key word: Endorphines.

It’s redundant to recount the benefits of regular aerobic exercise (and jogging in particular), but let me tell from first hand experience, my life style rose by at least 50% because of jogging: I’m generally in a better mode; more tolerant of idiots at work; can endure long working hours; acquired a natural aversion to junk food (except donuts) and bad habits (except smoking); have a better memory and concentration; enjoy a better and more restorative sleep…...and the thing about performance in the sack couldn’t be more true.

And it's also absolutely true that you get to a point where you enjoy jogging for jogging itself.

There are little details that you're going to have to deal with when you jog. Like when and where and for how long. Whether to maintain a steady pace or adopt interval peaks. And whether do it on alternate days or everyday. All these questions you're going to take care of yourself eventually. There are no hard and fast rules. As far as jogging is concerned, what's good for the goose may not be good for the gander.

One thing that can be of a great help is developing your own music list and listening while you jog. This really helps to motivate and, most importantly, to keep track of your progress without having to look at the wrest watch every couple of seconds. (one thing if for sure, a jogger's sense of time is distorted. A half hour usually feels like more, especially for smokers :))

Now I'd personally grown bored with my own play list (which I call 'Gym Time'). It has few hiphop tunes and some soundtracks. So please do share with me the content of your own play list for jogging.

................................

Why I run?

I run because I like the way the world looks before my eyes, rising and falling with my strides. Trifles shook and crushed under the pumping of my feet. And what matters is all that is left, pretty and accentuated by the color of the sunset on the horizon. The horizon that keeps getting closer and closer, as I run.

A Lunar Cycle

2010-08-18T18:31:00.003+04:00

You’re probably aware that a lunar year (comprised of a 12 lunar months) is shorter than a solar year by 11.25 days. The above disparity makes the lunar year mobile over the solar calendar. e.g. if Ramadan coincided with the month of august this year, it’s going to coincide with the month of July in a four years time. And with June in eight years time. And so on.

It also means that the last time Ramadan coincided with August was thirty-three years ago.

........................................................................................

I’m actually not old enough to remember the last time Ramadan fell in August. But I do remember vivid and hot Junes and Mays. It was the first Ramadan I’d planned to fast completely. Prior to the month, I used to play football everyday after school; we’d shed our school uniforms (which was a girly dress with bottoms across the front end and with the color of a burned-earth) and move to the deserted road beyond the fenced playgrounds. We’d run and dive and kick and thrash around a football, and then trudge home. Tired but content.

I’d felt there was no reason why this routine should stop during Ramadan. But the moment I got home on the first day, I realized there was something fundamentally wrong with the world. I was extremely thirsty, and sunset time was still five hours away. After an hour of an immense struggle, I sneaked into the kitchen and turned on the water tap. A thin, cool stream of the Euphrates water swam across the sink from me. I hesitated. Mom was close by. I leaned forward and started gulping, slowly and embarrassingly at first, seized by a sense of foreboding. As if the water would be poisoned by the virtue of the sinful act. But soon the guilt wore off and the thirst was quenched. I retreated from the kitchen without alerting a soul.

But the shame came back looming over the dinner table later when I sat to share Iftar with the family, feeling like a traitor. I was the youngest and, although they’d not declared it, the grown-ups in the family were observing me from afar. Trying to assess how I’d fare. There’d been a talk before about my taking on the month and how I should approach fasting with responsibility and awareness. It felt like the a red Indian boy’s initiation into manhood. I couldn’t let the tribe down. The next day, I moved instinctively with the boys as we made our way to the deserted road after school. Half way through the usual time of playing, I became apprehensive about the loss of bodily fluids. When I got home I struggled longer, but eventually caved in. For the next couple of days I’d drink from a park before getting home. The treasonous act became planned and premeditated but I couldn’t keep the risk of being caught home with my mouth on the muzzle.

The following Friday was my day off from school, and I managed to complete my fast without transgressions.

I stopped playing football for the rest of month.

A New Design and a Quiz

2010-08-16T16:01:00.003+04:00

Today, out of boredom, I decided I needed a new facade/design for the blog. The old one'd gotten old, and the text was small and the accompanying font pedestrian. So I picked up one of those ready-made templates on blogger.com and kept playing around with it until I've come up with what you see here....

Let me tell you about the header photo: it's one of my favorite black and white photography of all time. Allegedly, it's been shot in Istanbul circa 1850. And man, this is how shisha is supposed to be consumed. Patrons of the cafe are all sitting facing one direction. If any one of them knows any other, he's not showing it. They've all got this gentlemanly 'fuck off' expression. Like seriously, have your smoke, drink your concentrated black coffee, and be on your way. Mind your business. Never cross your legs. Never trim your tash......

I'd love to know what they're all looking at, though.

Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, to celebrate the event, I've got a little quiz for you: how many people can you see in the aforesaid photo?

Kindly leave your answer with links to your favorite black'n'white/old photography if any.....

________________________________________________________
p.s. you can find this photo and much more fascinating photography from the Levant here.

Ben-Zion Netanyahu

2010-08-12T15:30:00.007+04:00

Being someone who's not overly concerned with all the brouhaha around the Iranian nuclear program, the following part of Jeffery Goldberg's article on the subject is what actually caught my eyes the most:

One of Netanyahu’s Knesset allies told me, indelicately, though perhaps not inaccurately, that the chance for movement toward the creation of an independent Palestinian state will come only after Ben-Zion’s [Netanyahu's father] death. “Bibi could not withdraw from more of Judea and Samaria”—the biblical names for the West Bank—“and still look into his father’s eyes.”

You hear that, O you seekers of peace? settlements and apartheid can't stop being the ugly and virulent means of injustice that they are; an entire group of people with unsettled grievances and crushed national aspirations can't have their state; a six decades long suffering following ethnic cleansing and dispossession will not end; the right for self-determination is suspended: all this because an old prick with demagogic world view can't die soon enough.

Fuck you Benjamin. May your dad never die peacefully.

Fast Food

2010-08-10T20:03:00.003+04:00

Fast food is man’s way of returning to basics; it is a repackaged ritual of ancient atavistic engagements; of hunting men and lusty women. There isn’t any attempt at presentability. The pieces of chicken stand alert on recycled paper plates. The pieces of chicken are expected to be manhandled and smacked around and them torn into with venomous urgency. There’s a primitive, built-in genetic inclination to devour in haste, before the smell of the fresh prey reached the wild predators or the adversaries in the nearby caves. A tumultuous tearing into flesh and fibers, into residual blood and soft cartilages. The modern man had refined this urgency and revised it into a forensic dissection. An endeavor that women with long fingernails and embarrassed- but overpowering- hunger could undertake without having to condescend into an animalistic growl. Mustached men can perform a tender fellatio on a piece of chicken without being figured for queers.

And then there's the Darwinism of frugality, of family sized and 'economic' meals. 'More value for money'. A cadaverous pile of chickens that had perished en masse. Prepared en masse. To be eaten en masse. A congregational act of gluttony masked by the need for austerity. The urgency to consume here is propelled by an edge of advantageous commerce. A need to exploit the bargain and call the bluff of the meal designer. On more subtle level, family size meals provide an unbreakable bond, a joint venture, a collaborative work of hands plunging into buckets and jaws chewing in unison. An economic meal is an ingenious approach to easing familial maladies. The epileptic speed by which these meals are consumed is a collective assertion of the right to self determination. The catatonic co-motion around the dining table is a pronouncement of a renewed primal rallying behind a common goal. The hideous group smearing of hands and face a revived formula of fuzzy logic and concentrated randomness.

Given the above, it's only natural that a meal of fast food be concluded by an act of therapeutic sex. Booths equipped for coital privacy must be provided around buzzing food courts. Enclaves of darkness where carnal wants can be enacted under the spell of cholesterol rush, passing the slanted genes to next generation. Rewarding the hunting man with a sense of accomplishment, shaming those who opt to nap instead. (There is no room to compromise when the supremacy of mankind is at stake). Lusty women must be accoladed for their continued service of the system, for their maintenance of the food chain and their indispensable role in calorie expenditure.

Fast food is a significant turn in our anthropology. An attempt to turn to basics, signified by streamlined slaughtering of weaker beings and automized bludgeoning of the environment.

Ramadan Mubarak!

2010-08-09T20:25:00.003+04:00

From Arab News of Saudi Arabia:

It is claimed that the rate of housemaids running away from their sponsors usually increases as the holy month of Ramadan approaches.

They escape as they are often able to command larger salaries of around SR2,500 per month, particularly because many Saudi families find it difficult to manage without a house help during the fasting month.

Hugh Tomlinson of the The Times, however, has a different view:

The number of runaways will soar in the coming days as Ramadan begins. Working hours can double because the maids must prepare the feast that follows sunset on the top of their daily chores. The women may have only two or three hours sleep a night for the entire month. (page 4 of Sat, august 7 paper edition)

Since many families withhold passports of their maids, I find it a bit hard to believe that domestic helpers would run away and be separated from their travel documents for the lure of a few Ryals more.

Let's keep in mind that one of the reasons fasting had been ordained on Muslims is because it teaches empathy and human camaraderie with the poor and the deprived.

Ramadan Mubarak everyone.

Tired

2010-08-06T03:11:00.006+04:00

Back in college, on a slightly cold and overcast day, one of our professors did something that took us all by surprise. It was slow-moving at the studio and a few students were in attendance. Our otherwise overbearing prof was in an abnormally generous and magnanimous mood. He dedicated the entire ninety minutes session to a bit of a motivational speak. For his credit, he didn't talk about himself. He probably knew with his astute shrewdness that he's far too peculiar to constitute a role model. He spoke about a former student, instead. A student that went on to teach urban design at one of the most prominent schools of architecture in Europe after her graduation. He spoke about her daunting family circumstances and her infinite tenacity. About the volume and the unprecedented quality of her work. About her attention to details and overwhelming capacity to produce workable ideas. About the endless hours she spent at the library, sorting through the relevant and the obsolete volumes of twentieth century architecture. About her inspiring determination and undeterred progress. The entire college, from the janitors to the administrators to the students and the teaching body, were in awe of her. She was unaware of-- or probably unconcerned about- her popular status. She had her own frame of reference. She didn't encounter any substantial competition from anybody. She competed with herself; literally defined perfection and then broke it apart and redefined it again.

She was in a league of her own.

She was, and probably still is, one of a kind.

I had forgotten her name, but let's call her Suha for the ease of narration. The legend of Suha has since become my own motivational powerhouse. I've never met her. Heck, I don't even know what she looks like. But the residual effect of her passing through the same academic route was always enough to push me through tough spells. Whenever I had my doodles crumbled and thrown in my face I'd think: Suha'd been there. She'd made it. She'd aced it. Whenever I'm inconvenienced with demanding projects, whenever I hit an impasse of stiff government regulations or impossible deadlines, I turn to Suha. I see her scurrying about the administrative corridors, weaving in and out of professors' offices, leaping from a desk to another with the indifferent spirit of a kamikaze and the confidence of an accomplished valedictorian. Leaving only admiration and envy in her wake.

.....................................................

But as things stand now, career-wise, I've become exhausted. Tired. Tired of overly optimistic expectations and lack of clarity. Tired of premma dona-like clients. Tired of colleagues whose asses I constantly try to cover, only to find their backsides are actually growing in size and gruesomeness each time. I'm tired of an incompetent manager who flounders in his shit when he's present, and leaves us to sift through a mess of unintelligible correspondences when he's away. I'm tired of repetition and monotony. I'm tired of the collective, servile and undeserved deference imparted to those who hold the checkbooks. I'm tired of the elusion of responsibility being the norm and the standard.

I'm tired of being in a boat that's constantly being scuttled by the lack of direction. I'm tired of singing along a chorus of discordant vocalists.

I don't need a vacation, but I certainly need a break. I need to invoke the Holy Spirit of Suha and seek guidance in her infallible wisdom. I need to drink her professional elixir and soak in the hallowed waters of her erudition.

Suah, come back to me soon. I need to know what you would have done......

Zionist Cricket

2010-08-01T20:49:00.004+04:00

In a bid to expand its participation in world-wide sporting events, the ministry of Settlers' Fitness in the Zionist Entity announced this weekend its interest in making cricket a mainstream activity at the Kibbutz.

"All other nuclear nations, and especially the NPT non-signatories, are doing well at the game. We want to see what it's all about" said Shaul Matan, the Highest Commissioner for Kosher Sports, holding an Uzi in one hand and juggling cricket balls with the other.

The move comes hot on the heels of the latest world wide embarrassing expose' of Mossad Kidons, the ruthless arm of the Zionist intelligence services. Agents from Kidons were spotted wearing Tennis gear as camouflage in recent operations.

"This could widen our horizon..... [give] us more opportunity to move around the world and get to meet new people. Tennis isn't the only sport, you know" Mr. Matan added, a sly smirk on his face.

There were mixed reactions to the question of whether the game could capture the interest of the hardcore Settlers' movement. Some believe the leisurely fashion of cricket could appeal to the settlers' psyche.

"When your home is subsidized by US tax-payers' money, and built on lands appropriated from the Palestinians, life becomes easy and with no challenges" said a bearded settler on condition of anonymity, panting as he hurried back after burning a Palestinian olive grove. "We want some suspense, but a measured adrenaline rush at the same time. So cricket might suit us well."

The fact that, historically, cricket had grown in popularity during colonial times, was heavily present during deliberations to initiate the Hasbara campaign necessary to give Zionist cricket a first push, Mr. Matan provided.

Nearby at a shooting range, a teenage settler welcomed the move but for slightly different reasons.

"I've been watching cricket on TV .... I like it, but most importantly, I like the kind of scores you end up with." said the youngster with the freckled face, while gunfire erupted in the background "As a final score, 376 - 3 sounds wonderful. This the kind of game we usually play with the Palestinians.......... proportion wise"

Michaela Sharmotsky, a porn star and an IDF reservist, couldn't hide her excitement at the prospect of the new game.

"[as a] cheerleader, this reassures me that my services are still in demand" said Michaela, while fiddling with her cleavage and revealing a daring amount of chutzpah.

Feminine Propaganda -2-

2010-07-30T02:16:00.009+04:00

A woman is an experiment in propaganda. A testament to the powers of the status quo and the outreach of the established authorities. A woman is a walking fashion statement, cluttered with dress codes and made complicated by man's distrust of his brother man. On the curves of her body a man had written his revolutionary manifestos, under the glare of another man's disapproval. A woman's body had always been the subject of contention, of competing agendas and scrambling lobbies. A never ending conflict between those who want to liberate and those who intend to perpetuate. Perhaps it's no coincidence that man's brutality in war and crisis is always inflected upon women. From the revolting crimes of mass rape to the hum of factories where silent women worked for minimal wage. The soldier and the slave driver had both conspired to promulgate their homicidal rage. The soft underbelly of society had always seemed, to them, like the righteous recipient of their depraved plans. Psychopathic goons, yet untouchable with their absurd theology and sinister politics.

A woman is an experiment in propaganda. A salacious, contagious and outrageous propaganda. The kind of rhetoric that makes you wish for a career in poetry. Poetry of love and massive agony. Of stalled dreams and premature visual fantasies. What is an alphabet without the conniving power of feminine vowels and letters aggrieved by unfulfilled desires? What is a language worth without the documented cries of passions and the registered sighs of orgasm? What a colorless, tasteless literature it is that doesn't speak of silent longing and secret affairs? What a culture it is that doesn't justify your urges, but seeks to criminalize your schemes and taint your person with guilt instead? How can a civilization be modeled away from the charms of its women and the subsequent awe of man? How can an economy survive without guaranteeing the affordability of sensual dreams and the equal distribution of tangible pleasures?

A woman is an experiment in propaganda. A coded and barely fathomable propaganda. Marked by the volatility of promise and the scarcity of clear discourse. Distinguished by the tentativeness of its slogans and the ostensible foolishness of its subscribers. A propaganda that provides vitality to your creative faculties, only to turn around and question the sanity of your motives. A propaganda that is wary of attention and welcoming of indifference. A puzzle that culminates in a tangle of bed sheets and the scandalous groans of gratification. A mission deemed impossible until the night of ceremonial inauguration, of validated aspirations and proven adequateness.

A woman is an experiment in propaganda. A body of tried and tested respite from prosaic concerns. A lovely reminder of the futility of idleness. Of the significance of release and the neatness of biology. Of people's endeavor to create and procreate. Of a world in constant need to get laid.

____________________________________

P.S. This is a sequel to Feminine Propaganda -1-

No more Niqabs in Syrian Universities

2010-07-19T08:20:00.004+04:00

Following the ban on Niqab-wearing teachers, Syria's ministry of higher education bans the Niqab inside all campuses:

Fearing an ever-secular Syria might turn to radical Islam, authorities has quietly banned the niqab, a face-covering veil worn by some Muslim women, in public universities — a move welcomed by most Syrians.

........................

"The Minister has totally rejected this phenomena which contradicts with the academic values and traditional morals and ethics of the Syrian society," the source said, on condition his name would not be used.

"We will not leave our daughters a prey for extremist thoughts. The Syrians have always shown through history their awareness, understanding and the ability for confronting those bad habits," the source quoted Barakat, the Syrian Minister, as telling his top assistants.

I couldn't agree more with this ban......:) But I'm not repeating what I'd said in an earlier post. I'll just add that the nature and complexities of academic life require personal contacts with full facial expressions. Not to forget the need for identification in case of exams and attendance keeping. It's no-brainer. For instance, I personally feel it's incumbent upon me, by the basic tenets of decency and mannerism, to remove my sunglasses if I'm engaged in a serious conversation with someone. Even if we're outdoor and the sun light is blinding. So it makes even more sense for the academic exchange to be undisturbed by veils and barriers.

But that aside, I'm very glad our government is taking serious steps to safeguard secularism and combat extremist interpretations of Islam.

However, what delights me the most in this whole melodrama is the way some Islamists get their knickers in a twist. They whine and rant and make no sense. Aren't they cute when they speak of social liberties and personal freedoms? Aren't they cute when they don their fake liberal Abaya just to protest this incident, but then throw all liberal pretensions to the bonfire when the opportunity arises?

Where were they when Islamic Militias killed female students dressed "indecently" in Basra?

What's their position on Hamas's decision to ban women from Shisha cafes?

Where is their self-righteous indignation and protests over child marriage?

What's their position on the shitty treatment of minorities in some Muslim countries?

In fact, even in the course of the current debate, some of them don't seem to disguise their real tendencies. Like this dude who describes these kinds of decisions as "pouring oil on fire". Oh really? why is it akin to stoking fire, O you wise one? is there a thinly veiled threat in that admonition of yours?

And then there are the denigrating references to women who don't cover their faces as "Safirat". (whichI believe is an all-purpose word in the extremist Islamic lingo, designed to stigmatize women who don't cover up).

But I agree with them on one thing, this debate and its implications and repercussions go beyond the Niqab. The rising tide of Islamism, and the likes of the televanglist Abu Isaac, are serious and ominous signs. Anyone with an ounce of concern for personal freedom, anyone with the slightest repulsion to coercion and divisiveness, is ought to be apprehensive. I even daresay that the outcome of these debates is going to have a great bearing on the future of the entire region.

But that's just me.

Wa qad a'zar man anzar ..... (still better than "pouring oil on fire", eh? :) )

Jumana

2010-07-17T19:31:00.002+04:00

There are two conflicting accounts as to when I’d enunciated my first coherent sentence.

The first is that once I’d barged into the kitchen in my underwear, pushed a baby chair to the sink and climbed up, demanding that my mom “open up the water mixer so that I can wash the dishes.”

I was one year ten months old and I can attest to this story, because I remember it very well.

The second is claimed by my neighbors’ daughter, who was fifteen years older than me and who used to look after me and use me like a toy when my mom wasn‎’t around. It'd been a month earlier to the above incident. She was engrossed in a semi literate fashion magazine (this was the early 80’ after all), when I started crying all of the sudden demanding that I be “given my magazine” in an Egyptian accent.

It is a moot point at this conjunction in life to assess the veracity of Jumana’s story. I have absolutely no problem having composed my first line of spoken words in Egyptian accent. If for nothing else, it’d probably prepped me to a life peppered with multi-culturalism and conflicting fashion statements.

Jumana was a very sweet girl. Caring and attentive. Later when I grew up, and when life had imparted me with enough experience to discern, I saw love and tenderness in her eyes when I contemplated my early childhood photographs, in which she figured a great deal.

Jumana went on to study at the Teachers Institute and to become a teacher. Our encounters were destined to become sporadic and intermittent. But whenever she saw me in the stairwell, she’d shriek with joy or an uproarious laughter. Pull me in an intense hug, press my head between her bosoms, the way she was accustomed to when I cried as an infant, and dive her chin in my shoulder blades. I was still the little toy as far as she was concerned. The little harmless ‘Hamoudeh’ who was full of the curiosity, spontaneity and cluelessness of the little.

As with all good things that come to an end, Jumana had ceased all physical contacts with me at a certain point. The point when she’d realized that perhaps I’m not the innocent little child anymore. The intensity of the meetings would soon be replaced by a shy smile and a few laconic words uttered with politeness and unease. To her, I was probably an embarrassing reminder of the yester years, of summer time spent idling under a ceiling fan, leafing through magazines of male idols while I fidgeted and fretted by her side, pinching her over the thin summer dress and trying to chew her hair bands.

Like the grinding tracks of a Sherman tank, life had moved on. We moved to a new house and I lost all contacts with Jumana. And as the protocols of our sanctimonious culture ruled, I wasn’t in a position to ask about her. However, despite the lack of communications and the muzzle that the women in my household had imposed with regards to all women reception held in our house, I caught a peek of Jumana a couple of times. Once with a wedding band, later with a swollen belly, and later yet with a plaything of her own held closely to the breasts that were the panacea to my own childhood angst.

Aren’t they amazing, the kinds of memories that precipitate over the savannah of the mind. Whether because she wasn’t gifted with a little brother of her own, or because the circumstances of the time didn’t allow Jumana to spank me when I acted up, the qualities and memories of her baby-sitting me will always stay with me. I’m not one of those men who were left estranged from the legacy of their fragile existence. From their dependencies on the women species they would later grow up to persecute and subjugate. I’m not ashamed of Jumana and her cassette player, of her tying a headscarf around her slender figure and belly-dancing while I clapped clumsily with my tiny hands. I’m not disturbed by Jumana’s love affairs or her erotic giggle.

Jumana, I love you. It’d been an absolute pleasure being part of your rehearsal for a later life of child rearing and motherhood, which I’m sure you mastered with excellence.

Dream

2010-07-15T12:17:00.003+04:00

I'm at a tweetup. One that was arranged in haste as a response to a hate-related incident. We are in a small auditorium, navy blue velvet covering the walls. Tweeps are giving speeches, standing up from where that sat and just generally talking about hate-crime in their respective home countries and how it'd been combated. The room is dark. The stage empty. Except for dimmed beams of lights dancing to the sweetest R&B tune (actually, it was one I'd never heard before. If I was a musician, I'd compose it and it'd make a hit). Tweeps have faces, voices and bodies that cast long shadows. But I can't recognize any of them. When they speak, it's all funny avatars and 140 characters.

The event ends. We are walking back to our cars that are scattered around a deserted roundabout. There is a very slow-moving and solemn-looking procession of other cars, the R&B tune was blaring through the tinted windows of the one in the front.

We're about to get into our cars and leave when couple of tweeps demand attention and make a little speech. Apparently; they're inviting us all to a dinner where they'd present their product: some sort of a spice that, when mixed with food, make people less prone to prejudice and racism.

The dream ends here.

Syria Bans Teachers With Face Veil

2010-07-09T11:03:00.004+04:00

I read this in The National yesterday:

Teachers who wear a full face veil have been quietly barred from their jobs by the Syrian government in a move the authorities say is necessary to protect secularism and ensure children receive an objective education.

Civil society organisations believe that 1,200 women have been affected by the measure, with all of them moved from their teaching positions and given jobs in local municipal authority offices.

..................

In response to queries made during a teachers’ syndicate meeting, chaired by a member of the ruling Ba’ath Party, Mr Saad said: “Education in Syrian schools follows an objective, secular methodology and this is undermined by wearing the face veil.”

I support this decision in its entirety. As an operator of public education, and a guardian of the upbringing of children, the state has the right to dictate the quality of the message and the messenger alike.

Teachers are not only vehicles of delivery. They are role-models and they have a significant impact on impressionable kids. The face veil (aka the Niqab) is at the end of the day an extreme interpretation of Islam. It indicates that the person who follow the practice had chosen to adopt the most rigid of choices.

Don't get me wrong, I realize there are wonderful and intelligent Niqabi women out there who manage to overcome the difficulties the Niqab imposes. And for what it is worth I do not call for banning the face veil altogether. But when it comes to national curricula and public education, we must be realistic and acknowledge that if we were to serve secularism as an objective, then certain guidelines must be observed. (and yes, I believe the ban is correct even if teachers tended to remove their face veil inside the classroom).

As for my personal view of the face veil: as I said many times before in my endless arguments with friends and colleagues: there are two ways to look at it: one is from an entirely Islamic Sharia based point of view (which I'm not going to wade into because even the most accomplished and loud scholars of Islam haven't reached a consensus), and second is from the secular point of view that respects and protects social liberties.

The latter approach, which I tend to adopt, maintains that wearing face veil is a personal choice as long as it doesn't project harm unto others in the society. To my knowledge, there hasn't been any demonstrable evidence that face veil is harmful to those who wear it and the people surrounding them. Thus, I rule that Belgium and France ban of the Niqab is hypocritical and myopic.

It's a different case with teachers, for the reasons I've mentioned above. Even though the face veil must be tolerated and accepted, its spread is not something I look at with pleasure. The Niqab, in my humble opinion, is itself a form of a ban. Men are banned from seeing the face of the woman in question, and the woman is banned from showing it to them. And if my simplified interpretation bothers you, I'm not going to go as far as to say that banning the ban is akin to correcting a wrong, but I'm not going to praise the Niqab either.

I once toyed with the idea that, if ever I'm to go settle back home, I will not settle in Aleppo, my freaking home town. Here's what worries me the most: the article says out of the 1200 teachers subject to the ban, 600 were from Aleppo (my freaking home town). Keeping in mind that Aleppo plays host to only 20 % of the population; the rate of wearing the face veil, in my freaking home town, is 4 times the national average.

My dear Abu Fares, how is Tartous looking these days? :-)

My take on the recent construction accidents...

2010-07-07T09:36:00.006+04:00

You have perhaps heard of the few tragic accidents that took place in Sharjah recently: the first one occurred when a cradle (a platform used for cleaning windows or accessing the inaccessible) broke in half and the four men it was carrying fell from a six floors height. The fact that all four men died gives you an idea about the intensity and inevitability of death at such occasion. (And I hope it was peaceful and instant, although I suspect there's a moment of a colossal pain upon colliding with the ground, but I digress).

The second is another tragic accident where three men fell to the ground after a scaffolding collapsed from underneath them. According to the news story, two had died instantly and the third struggled in the hospital for couple of days before passing away of brain hemorrhage.

What really pisses me off after hearing these stories and reading about them in the newspapers (and the interviews conducted and the amount of equivocation spouted), what really gets to me is the idea that the wheel needs to be reinvented after such accidents. This reminds me of the uproar that took place couple of years ago after the several fires that broke out in couple of high rise buildings under construction. The department of civil defense came up with a new set of rules (reinventing the wheel): which stipulated, among many other things, that building under construction should have fire fighting sprinkler system (the little radial shaped nozzles mounted on the ceiling that dance and swirl and ejaculate water when it sniff a whiff of smoke (or heat)). Now for the uninitiated this may sound reasonable, but it's not. Sprinkler systems are enormously expensive and impractical, they complicate construction by the factor of ten. And besides, there are more urgent safety measures that must be adhered to before: train technicians to treat flammable Polyurethane (insulation) more carefully, for instance.

And here again, we do not need to reinvent the wheel: there are safety standards in place for access cradles: take the En 1808: Safety requirements on suspended access equipment. Safety here encompasses design, installation and, to some extent, operation. Dubai isn't short of high rise buildings, but to my limited knowledge there hasn't been accidents where access platforms fell off. And having been partly involved in such process I can tell you why: the supplier of the system (which includes monorail with structural support on the roof) will have to show certificates that his product complies with the EN 1808 standards, then he'll have to get his design approved by our structural engineer, then he'll have to get a safety certificate from a licensed third party (with regards to the robustness of the installation). The cleaning staff will be trained on the safety features of the equipments, and there will be an in-built safety mechanism that disables the motorized movement of the cradle if the specified load capacity is exceeded.

Having said all that, I must point out that the second accident, the scaffolding accident, is of an entirely different nature than the first one. Cradles are permanent structures of dynamic nature. Scaffoldings are temporary but static structures. The only common thing between them is that they were probably both done under the ...ehm...watchful (?) eye of Sharjah Municipality. Scaffolding accidents are more common than that of access platforms and they put lives at risk even in countries with diabolical safety measures. As a general rule, structures with moving parts, or that are subject to frequent assembling and dismantling, require massive cautiousness at every step of their use.

The construction business is like any other business, even with religious compliance to standards there are factors of human errors and the things that could go funny and awry. And there's a risk factor as well. Like flying an airplane, you're subject to the laws of aerodynamics and weather forecast and competitiveness of your pilots and maintenance crews. The elements here are more or less the same.

Out of all the waffle that I'd read about the subject in the papers, this quote sums it all up quite well:

Brian Florance, the operations manager of Malt Techniques, which installs and manages cradles in Dubai, said cradles must be checked for a variety of things.

“There are design criteria, installation criteria and safety regulations for working at heights,” he said.

frUodZm

2010-07-06T10:08:00.003+04:00

X is at home. Fast asleep. Y is walking down the street where X lives. Assuming that X is a rational human being, it’s easy to figure out what expectations X has of Y: just please don’t piss on my lawn; don’t harass my dog; and generally just don’t trespass.

Then it’s safe to conclude that Y’s freedom is hardly affected by X’s protective rights in this situation.

We now wake up to a glorious morning; X is out heading to the bus terminal, which will eventually take him to his place of work. He meets X1, his neighbor and colleague, and they both proceed to the bus terminal. Sitting across the aisle from them on the bus is Y. Now that they’re in close proximity, X and X1 have a lot more expectations of Y than just the few basic guidelines from last night: he should be clothed decently; he can’t place his mouth on lady’s sitting next to him in an affectionate manner; he can’t display any religious or political symbols that could hurt the feelings of X and X1.

It’s safe to assume that Y’s freedom is a little more restricted now that he’s on the bus with the X duo.

X and X1 are now at work. They’re joined by X2 and X3 as they all sit on one side of a long mahogany table. They are here in the conference room to meet candidates for a certain position at the company they work for. At the other side, applicants for this position are one by one seated and interviewed. Y happens to be one of the applicants. He places his CV (which had already been read and dissected by the quartet of Xs) on the table and proceeds to have a seat. Y, being a smart person, had already inquired about the company of Xs and read their profiles in local newspapers. He’d become acquainted with their likes and dislikes, their quirks and whims. And, because he really wants to get the job, he’d written his CV accordingly. And he’s going to lay his spiel before them accordingly. He’d started to toe the line well before the job interview. He’s going to get the job.

Now that Y had become an employee at the Xs, his freedom is greatly influenced by how much leeway they’re allowing him, and, in turn, the amount of free rein the labor law is giving them to control their employees. (Make no mistake about it, if they could, they’re going to exploit that rein to the max). Y would have to adjust his life accordingly.

Now that he’s got a stable employment, Y is going out and meeting people more often. And once upon a time he’d met someone from the other sex who he’d liked very much. But a problem arise, that other person isn’t only from a different type of letter, she is from a different alphabet altogether. Let’s call her #. Y and # go out a few times and they happen to like each other. Then Y meets #’s folks and reality strikes: the Y group of people, by a mutual agreement of hatred, can’t get together with the # group. But Y and # aren’t giving up, they plough forward and review the law of the land; the law that had been drawn out by a collective agreement between all the alphabets (with the word of the dominant alphabet being, well, dominant). But all their efforts were in vain. Personal status laws are also inspired by the mutual agreements of hate and division.

Y’s personal life is undermined because men with tremendous powers (the quartet of Xs and their peers) had placed demilitarized zones and swathes of landmines all around him. He could only walk the path they expect him to walk.

Y is an inquisitive guy. His curiosity leads him to discover a few interesting facts about the established rules around him. He wants to explore and learn more. He goes out to the public library, finds out all the books he’d like to read are banned. All the poetry that could inspire him to act on his discoveries had been erased from the memory of his people. Who decides what’s banned and what’s not? Well, the groups of Xs and their peers. And community leaders who’d like to keep the schisms so that they’re not out of job. And the provocateurs and the hate-incitement champs who are wedged like scarecrows in the sub-consciousness of the people.

Y is tired of all this, he wants to write his own book. A book that will certainly be banned. And the latter group of men are aware of all this, for they’re watching him closely.

Y, having heard about all the intrepid Ys before him, decides it’s easier to give up. He reverts back to walking the nights as a forgettable shadow, where the expectations are low and the encroachment on his freedom is minimal.

(.....or, as a last resort, there's always the option from the previous post)

"Please get impaled"

2010-07-04T23:48:00.010+04:00

At the beginning, it was perhaps a coincidence; a pre-historic man mistakenly landing on a stalagmite or a pointed tree branch. But it's certainly no coincidence that impalement has become despots' preferable method of execution in medieval ages. And it's not only because it's a slow and agonizing and gut-wrenching death, not only because it represents a prolonged image of the ultimate disgrace in homophobic eras; it's because the condemned man (or woman) is denied the freedom of movement even while he or she writhes to death. There is a procedure in this brutality, a statement of deterrence and usurpation of the human soul. A formidable display of power, evident in the robbery of rectum control and the disturbance of bowels movement.

It's no wonder then that the action of impalement is one of the most metaphorically celebrated expressions in Arabic slang (at least where I come from): Tkhoza'et* (I got impaled): "I got impaled in the exam". "I got impaled in that transaction". Even in the inter-personal sense of the allegory, people impale each other all the time: colleagues rat each other out, relatives gossip, neighbors spray paint cars and slash tires, classmates come up with elaborate pranks ...etc..

I still have a vivid memory of our teacher of Arabic Lit at high school. One day we stood up in respect upon his entering the class, only to be met with his gruff voice telling us to "Get impaled" تخوزقوا (an endearing substitute for the timeless "Please be seated"). I also remember two conservatively dressed women in one of Aleppo's old souks, one of them telling the other: "tkhoza'na be hal sharieh" (we got impaled in that purchase). Nizar Qabani, the legendary Syrian poet, spoke of an impalement on a transnational scale after a certain defeat in our recent history; a huge pole, the size of Sinai peninsula, had been hammered up our collective asses....(apologies Fairouz, the Bells of Return won't be rung anytime soon.....).

The application, indeed, isn't limited to actions: there are personality types who are a constant reminder of an impalement pole. You know the person who keeps being contrarian for the heck of it? the sore thumb who defies consensus just to appear unique and exceptional? the lone motherfucker who thrives on obtrusiveness and gets off on being a pain in the butt to the group? you know him/her? well, that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Fountain Pole (خازوق البحرة) :

While the practice of impalement had ceased to exist ages ago (except in the modus operandi of the most psychopathic criminals), the disturbing imagery is still with us. Haunting us and reminding us of our primitive fears and our ability to screw each other over.

_____________________________________________________

*Takhozaqa (تخوزق) is a verb to be derived from the noun Khazooq (خازوق), which literally means "a pole".

Dream

2010-07-01T09:15:00.004+04:00

I am in a bus-driving simulator. The kind that gives you the total riding experience; complete with bumps on the road and the smell of manure when you drive past animal barns; complete with forty-five comfortable seats and the muted hissing and releases of hydraulic agility. The simulated drive is smooth, feels like being carried on an air cushion. It appears to me that I'm the driver; the other seats are occupied with friends and family. And although the interior is dark, the mood is cheery and celebratory. As if this was the final one in a series of harsh and regimented tests that a few hard men have weathered before. The scenery is impressive; English country-side with overwhelming greenery and overcast sky and slow drivers.

The complete experience.

Soon the scenery changes, and instead of the outline of the road, narrowing to a vanishing point in the distance, platters of food start traversing the screen (or the windshield, if you like) from left and right. It doesn't take long for me to figure out the pattern; this is all Syrian cuisine. And, the simulation being true to its design, the smell of earnest cooking begins emanating from vents, attacking the nostrils of my fellow passengers with precision and purpose. I hear heavy sighs and groans from back there. Men and women in cheery moods under the influence of spoiled taste buds. My hands are no longer needed on the steering wheel, so I watch the parade for moment longer and then I reach forward and grab one of the platters, handing it over my shoulder to the crowd behind, without looking. But I do feel obliged to name the dish and the major ingredients. Soon the screen ahead of me is emptying out and a new barrage of platters thrust laterally, this time with all kind of sweets. I feel hungry all of the sudden. The expertly presented dishes with high definition colors and glossy finishes get to me. I want to grab them all and get it over with. But there is one tray of something which name I can’t recall. I reach forward to snatch it anyway, but an authoritative voice, probably the invisible driving instructor, admonishes me that nothing on display could be consumed without naming the dish and the ingredients first.

Damn.

The ride seems to be winding down at this moment. I have a feeling I flunked the test. The crowd behind me are quite. I reach what looks like a service station and park the bus in one of the bays. A South Asian laborer in blue and grimy overalls appears from behind the reflective glass of an office, and even in simulation, he’s disgruntled and sulky. I buzz the window down and he speaks to me in Malayalam. I reply to him in Malayalam. The dream ends.

I couldn't recall the name of the sweet but I could speak Malayalam. Go figure.

A Crisis of Egos

2010-06-26T13:53:00.006+04:00

From the review of 'Wisdom: From Philosophy to Neuroscience':

Take, for instance, a 2007 study at Pennsylvania State University's Smeal College of Business, conducted by two economists. They wanted to know if there was a correlation between narcissism in CEOs and volatility in that company's performance. As they were unable to kidnap the various CEOs and put them through extensive personality testing, they examined "the size of the leader's photograph in company documents, the length of entries in Who's Who, the frequency with which the CEO was mentioned in corporate press releases, and the number of times the CEO used the first-person singular (I, me, mine, my, myself) in interviews." What they found was that the more narcissistic the CEO appeared to be, the more detrimental they were to the company. And, of course, the results are now clearly visible to everyone who has been following the news of the United States financial system in the past two years.

Oh how pleased I felt after reading this. How immensely pleased. It's like being hit with a jolt of self-validating revelation. Isn't it fascinating, ladies and gentlemen, that the doctrine which promotes individualism, self-centeredness and egotism as virtues to be rewarded (in this case by becoming a CEO); isn't it fascinating that this model had a recent near-death experience due, among other things, to the very virtues it advocates?

I'm not suggesting that narcissism or self-centeredness are the only qualities the CEOs in question had: they may have been the top of their class for all I care.

Oh, and before advocates of narcissism get thrilled; while most CEOs might be narcissistic, not all narcissists are CEOs.

This one is for Algeria

2010-06-19T19:37:00.006+04:00

oh departing traveller, where are you heading?
your journey is bound to failure
how many travelers before you
have sought the path with similar results?

how many cities and barren deserts have I roamed?
how much time have I wasted
touring from one place to another?

oh lost one, no matter how much you run away
your destiny will end in exhaustion
time had passed you by
and you have yet to notice it

Why have you got the sadness in your heart?
And why are you staying there miserable?
Hardship will end and you'd no longer learn or build anything
The days don't last, just as your youth and mine didn't
Oh poor fellow who missed his chance just as I missed mine

Algerian fan holding a Palestinian flag with "We will not forget Gaza" written over it.

Photo courtesy of Al Chorouk Online

All I wish for the World Cup is.....

2010-06-12T08:49:00.002+04:00

.....for Algeria to be as good as Cheb Khaled's appearance at the opening ceremony: cool, energetic, surprising, reminiscent, and most of all, will leave you dancing despite yourself.

Feminine Propaganda

2010-06-09T09:56:00.010+04:00

A woman is an experiment in propaganda. A PR machine with its own hierarchy and chain of command. Sophisticated lies designed to maintain image and deflect suspicions. Lies; self-proclaimed to be of the white variety. Words are manipulated as easy as men. Even with parted lips, sighs, and barely audible mumblings; the credibility is ought to be questioned. A man is left wondering which side of the conflict he is on. Did he fall prey to the hype, the publicity and deranged obsessions? Did he ever manage to take a glimpse into the real thing; the ulterior motives, the hidden agendas, and the dungeons of torture?

A woman is an experiment in totalitarian rage. An embodiment of bloodless coups and sadistic indoctrination. Stability is a static tectonic plate on the roiling, molten magma. A man could only wish to be the insipid creature in her vibrant habitat, or the stereotypical camel to her proverbial, elusive desert mirage.

A woman is an erroneous weather forecast that will ruin your weekend or leave you stranded in a thick forest. A relief mission that proselytizes and discriminates. A gift to the unrepentant flock by the non-existent gods.

A woman is an evocative manifestation of mobs and illicit trade. Of highly coveted smuggling routes and turf wars. Of territorial conflicts and nuclear stand-offs.

A woman is like a lean-to structure; she’s only as good as the mountain of excuses she’s built her life upon. She’s only as good as the fan-base she’d grown through her theatrics. A woman is an experiment in primal rage. Of the inarticulate neurotransmitters or the lack there-of.

A woman stands in defiance to international inquiries and fact-finding missions. It’s the timeless and most outrageous bias of history; that a woman is always granted the permission to self-investigate wrong-doings.

A woman is an experiment in propaganda; sweet, hypnotic and brainwashing propaganda. And we, men folks, will always fall for it.

___________________________________________

P.S. Just so that the TRA don't think I'm posting porn and block me for it; the above are artistic impressions of Blaqis (the Queen of Sheba), Hatshepsut (the Pharao queen), Cleopatra and Zenobia (queen of Palmyra).

A Tribute To Our Turkish Martyrs تحية إجلال لشهدائنا الأتراك

2010-06-03T23:04:00.005+04:00

As Marcel once said
we wrap you in green
we wrap you in red
we wrap you in white
and we wrap you in black,
O our dead

But this time around,
the sacrifice had come
from up north,
They came sailing
Through the night,
But the treacherous hand
of evil and barbarity
is long and it's shameless,
And it'd come upon them,

I watched the live feed,
All through the night,
I slept on a happy note,
Having seen the cheerful faces,
Of those who'd come from all places
To lift the siege
to end the collective moral handicap
of an apathetic world

but when I woke up,
I heard of the dead,
of the martyrs,
of the selfless
of the fearless
of those who'd put their lives
on the line
For Gaza
And Palestine

So this time around
our dead,
we wrap you in red
we wrap you in white
we wrap you in the crescent
and we wrap in the star, instead

LONG LIVE THE MARTYRS

Cevdet Kılıçlar
Çetin Topçuoğlu
Necdet Yıldırım
Furkan Doğan
Fahri Yaldız
Cengiz Songür
Cengiz Akyüz

Never forget. Never forgive.

The Freedom to Make Your Hate Public

2010-05-26T11:48:00.007+04:00

There's an ongoing argument right now among UAE twitter community and on blogs: to what extent do you entertain bigoted, racist or hateful opinions before you start thinking that they should be curtailed?

The argument has been sparked over a hateful, ignorant and a completely sick post by a guy who used to call himself A Blessing in Tragedy on UAE blogs (see my friend BuJ's rundown on him). This pleasant person was mocking the victims of the plane that had recently crashed on a flight from Dubai to Manglore in India. The post had garnered a very heated and passionate responses. I don't know of any sane individual who'd agree with the sentiment raised in the hateful post. But nonetheless, there seemed to be some sort of a bitter reaction as a result. Due, I believe, in part, to the fact that the guy calls his blog Al-Emarati. And, unfortunately, it's become necessary to try to explain to uninitiated people that this sentiment isn't at all representative of the mainstream UAE nationals.

Now the question is: what to do with this kind of venom?

1-Ignore the douche.

2-Try to reason/argue with the douche.

3- Block/ban the douche.

The overall consensus was to ignore. People are entitled to voice their idiotic opinions. Censorship is a slippery slope..etc...etc...

But wait a minute, are people really ignoring his post? (I honestly find it hilarious that our Alexander McNabb would advise that best approach is to ignore while addressing the subject on national radio (sorry Alex, couldn't resist ;) ).. It's not being ignored by any means. It was, and will still be for a while, generating comments and reactions of all kinds. That's trolling 101 folks, provoke people to react. Stimulate angry responses. Disseminate hate and then set back and laugh while everyone else is fuming and hurling insults. Soon you're going to find the kind of mislead comments that portrays this as Expats vs. Locals slighting match. Soon you're going to find people who, for the lack of alternative venues, would formulate part of their impressions of the UAE community based on this blog (which is, again, usefully called Al Emarati).

I'm all for freedom of speech. I envy Americans for their first amendment. I believe that your ability as a human being to express yourself is an inalienable right that should be protected by all means. But we don't have that provision in the UAE. And it'd be a waste of time and energy to start granting bigots that right. For the sake of better community relations, more purposeful and productive online communications, and general good old peace of mind, voice of hate and ignorance should be shut down.

Debbie Schlussel is a Flaming Moron

2010-05-17T12:15:00.004+04:00

You might have heard of Rima Fakih, the gorgeous (although not my type) Arab American girl who won the Miss USA beauty pageant.

A certain "award winning" blogger by the name of Debbie Schlussel didn't like Rima the moment she heard of her participation in the contest. She tried to smear her left and right. Why, Rima is, apparently, a Shia' Muslim. And we all know that Shi'a Muslims who hail from Lebanon are all supporters of Hezbollah. So by definition Rima is a terrorist who should be banned.

It doesn't matter what she, Rima, says or does to espouse and assert her liberal values (including flaunting her sexy body in skimpy Bikini). For Debbie Schlussel and her ilk, anyone with a Muzzie sounding name, or of an Arab or a Muslin background, is a potential threat who should be locked behind bars.

And she won't stop at any limit to smear her adversaries. Resorting to lies and fabrications if necessary. Check, for instance, the below picture taken from her blog. The man to the left is allegedly the guy who's been financing Rima's bid to the contest. And, according to DS, he's an "Islamic terrorist" and "immigration defrauder". (wow...what a dumb Homeland Security they have over there in the US that terrorists are allowed to finance beauty pageants.)

As you might have guessed already, the photo of the alleged "terrorist" is amateurishly photoshopped.

Here's the link.

On a lighter note, I think it's high time that a woman from the Levant won some international beauty pageant. We probably have the highest concentration of sexy women in the entire world. Although I have few reservations about the collective attitude of Levantine women, but I'm going to keep them to myself lest we set off a little blogsphere war.

Ahem.

Here are a few shots of Rima; enjoy the fishnet!

15th of May - 62 Years on the Nakba: A Few Memorable Quotes

2010-05-15T07:23:00.007+04:00

"The cleansing of Palestine remained the prime objective of Plan Dalet."
David Ben Gurion (the 'Founding Father' of Israel)

(Plan Dalet was a premeditated plan designed in part to ethnically cleanse Palestine during the establishment of the state of Israel)

"Only a state with at least 80% Jews is a viable and stable state"
David Ben Gurion

"Arab evacuees from the towns and villages left largely because of Jewish — Haganah, IZL or LHI — attacks or fear of impending attack.......[however],an extremely small, almost insignificant number of the refugees during this early period left because of Haganah or IZL or LHI expulsion orders or forceful 'advice' to that effect"
Benn Morris. Author of "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited", Cambridge University Press, 2004.

"This leads to a figure of 73% for departures caused directly by the Israelis. In addition, the report attributes 22% of the departures to "fears" and "a crisis of confidence" affecting the Palestinian population. As for Arab calls for flight, these were reckoned to be significant in only 5% of cases…"
A report by the military intelligence arm of the Haganah (the Jewish paramilitary force), which refutes the claim that the +750,000 Palestinians left Palestine of their own volition.

"Allon repeated the question: What is to be done with the population[50,000 Palestinian inhabitants of Lyd and Ramllah]? Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture that said: Drive them out!"
The Memoir of Yitzhak Rabin "Soldier of Peace"

"I'm a Zionist!"
Joe Biden, VPOTUS.

"The Middle East is obviously an issue that had plagued the region for centuries"
Barack Hussein Obama, POTUS.

---------------------------

"The viciousness of Israel is testament to its knowing that Palestinians will always remain steadfast and defeat its past and present attempts to erase them"
Joseph Massad (Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics at Columbia University)

"Revolt! you're only going to lose the tent and the shackle"
George Habash (the late Palestinian leader)

"All that you have done to our people is registered in notebooks"
Mahmoud Darwish (A renowned Palestinian poet)

"When a brown man resists, he's a terrorist. When a white man resists, he's Robin Hood"
Dubai Jazz

Joie de Vivre

2010-05-08T14:24:00.008+04:00

I record in minute details every move they make. From the moment they open their eyes to the crowing of domestic cocks, to the moment they surrender their consciousness to the ghosts of slumber. I’m there to watch as they heft heavy jars on their shoulders, and saunter the well-trodden path to the nearest oasis. I sneak behind them and watch as they sway their butts under the weight of their domestic chores, balancing the vessels high up on their tiny heads. I listen with great anticipation; their conversations growing more animated as they get closer to the water. I wonder, irrelevant as it might be to my sly intentions, why has it always been the job of young women to fetch water for household use………?

But my mundane inquiries are forgotten the moment I see them gingerly disposing of the clay, then edging closer to the water as they peel off the layers of clothing imposed by men. I hide behind a brush of greenery and watch in awe as God’s most perfect creation comes to sight, under the first rays of daylight. God’s perfect creation as god’s intended it to be, naked as autumn tree. From my vantage point, I could imagine their scents; the delight of water as it reacts to the intrusion of their feet with tiny splashes. Their bodies getting buried under the crystal fluid, a competition arises between the infinite liquid and their elusive flesh. My spirit soars with excitement at the faint groans of protest, as the chill of the water reaches up for the sacred parts. The parts prudishly defined as ‘private’; usually locked behind steel doors and guarded like nuclear silos.

I sigh. Now the revelation hits me, and I revel in the pleasure of my new discovery: yes, they, young women, accepted the duties imposed upon them, but they’d never let go of their conniving femininity. And, now I’m sure, were they ever to be denied this secret little joy, they’d find another way to experience their sensuality. Through tribulations of history and famine and war; nude figures will always stand out, testament to man’s tendency for safe release. In sculpture, prose, poetry, watercolors and flesh, they stand. Facilitating the ejaculation of man’s pent up anger. The anger of creased foreheads; radiant with hypocrisy by day, and buried in the strands of unfortunate pubic hair by night.

As the sun grows fiercer, the reality of our prosaic living presides upon the scene. And I make my silent retreat. I’m off to let my observations settle, my disturbed thoughts simmer. I’m off to undress women with my poetry, and sooth the masses with my words. I face no resistance when I invade Poland. I drink beer with the Gods of aliens and swim with the mermaids of my imagination. My file at the Religious Police headquarter grows thicker. My rap sheet at the Thought Police headquarter grows longer……..

I'm Imru' Al Qais, and they're out to get me.

______________________________________________________________
P.S. I don't stalk women, nor encourage anybody to do so. This piece of prose is, for what it's worth, metaphorical. And shall only be looked at as such.

So How's Business?

2010-05-01T15:24:00.005+04:00

Although I have great reservations about the concept of sustainability in construction and the hypocrisy with which it's been proposed, discussed, and even taught (in outrageously expensive seminars) around here, it is in principle an authentic and viable idea. In a world where you have limited resources (energy and building material) our only chance of survival and attaining abundance (I'll be coming back to this word later), is to build buildings that are well-insulated, energy efficient, where waste is recycled and solar power is harnessed and wind is exploited to cool and ventilate.

Naturally.

But while there's sustainable architecture, the architect's job isn't necessarily sustainable. Our resources, as I said above, are finite. Lands, demand, population growth..etc.. are all finite. And with a highly transient population like Dubai's, and with plans to exploit every square inch of the surrounding desert, (some of which have materialized and some still on the shelves), this reality is bound to hit at one point, and hit hard....

You see, the average lifespan of a building (that isn't built by a crook) is not less than 50 years. Take a look at other industries, people are more likely to change their cars, ditch their mobile phones, get duped by Steve Jobs, donate their laptops to kids in remote villages; they're more likely to do all that on a regular basis than to raze down their own buildings just because there's a better model in the market.

Granted; populations grow and industries expand, and with that comes a new demand for space ........ But that's not enough, and it's not sustainable.

Not for the army of consultants in Dubai anyway...

Some consultants have actually gotten so desperate they have assigned agents to stake out the halls of the Land Department and swoop upon every land owner who walks out with an affection plan (a layout of a plot). Business cards at the ready, they'd introduce themselves and offer their services. Doesn't matter if your land is a grant or a lease, doesn't even matter if you don't have the finances. They, consultants, will hook you up with somebody.........

(At this point when I was being told the story, my stomach actually turned)

I wonder, within this hysteric scrambling to sign clients up for lower fees: where does value engineering stand? where does a good, conscientious design stand? what about honesty and integrity? No Sir, us being consultants doesn't mean we're less prone to being corrupt. In fact, if a prospective owner gets an overly low quote for engineering services, he ought to be suspicious.

So you get the picture, we're barely scraping by. We (as in my office) should probably do what everybody else (including honorable Nick) is doing; scour the market in the Gulf and beyond. Probably seek opportunities in Afghanistan where drones are doing a great job of shortening the life spans of people and buildings alike. Or we could probably cast our gaze west and explore the potential of building palaces and resorts for royalties in Morocco and Algeria. Eventually the world is going to get its act together and they'll decide to stabilize the Republic of Congo, at which point lots of infra structure and buildings will be needed.

Or, as I said in the comment section of the previous post, we could cross our fingers and hope Dubai wins the bid to host the 2020 Olympics. (screw Gebreselassie, he should take this as a challenge: if he could run the marathon in Dubai's august, he could make it anywhere).

Maybe that exactly is what we need; positivity... You know, I came across this book last year that talks about Law of Attraction and all that stuff. Maybe if we kept a positive outlook, enhanced by our trust in the visions of those who made Dubai what it is today, maybe then we could prosper and survive. We can attain a state of abundance for everyone; keep everyone happy and content.

And, if I remember correctly, the Law of Attraction starts with imagination, you've got to visualize the kind of positive future you're looking for. So, after some thinking, here goes my own plan:

I imagine a city where architects are given a free rein to create and be creative. I imagine sleek glass towers and shopping malls with imposing interiors and fascinating attractions. I see aquariums and massive water features and seven stars hotels. I imagine a huge building that could be the tallest in the world. Maybe a public transport network that is fast and ......

...........

Wait a minute.

...........

Shit.

How do I know ‘City of Life’ is a movie made in Dubai

2010-04-24T19:29:00.004+04:00

Warning: heavy spoilers ahead.

Please. Do not read if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

And yes, go see it. It’s well worth watching.

So in answer to the question posed in the title, here we go:

- After you’ve bumped into an ex-model at the ballet center where your daughter go, you can rely on them, the ballet center, to divulge her contact info without her prior consent.

- Every white/Slavic person sleeps with every other white/Slavic person. (But not necessarily at the same time)

- When you pose a danger to the white man’s standing in society, he’ll tell you he owns the city and he’ll screw you through and through using his contacts. (oh, that is, after he screwed you the sweet way, so you might end up double screwed)

- The token Arab expat is such an overbearing, obnoxious asshole. But hey, his assholishness suddenly disappears when it turns out he owns a restaurant in the Marina.

- The Slavic lady is extremely outraged when she’s asked ‘khow much?’ at a nightclub. But she wouldn’t mind answering the question surreptitiously if the settings are right; that is, at pool-side party, especially when owning a restaurant in the Marina is part of the proffered answer.

- White people blame all their screw-ups on drunkenness. They are, otherwise, straight as a laser beam when sober.

- White people are and will always be fussing over abortion wherever they are anywhere in the world.

- The middle finger doesn’t really land you in prison. Oh, but it might actually get you deported.

- There are no road accidents in Dubai, only pile-ups. Involving minimum of 17 cars in each case.

- A cricket ball will get anywhere, any time. It's got one of my Lebanese friends in the nuts in a parking lot. To be on the safe side, you'd have to walk around with a jockstrap.

- Almost everyone treats the Taxi Driver like a doormat, including his company and his passengers.

- Like almost everyone in this city, the audience (yours truly included) will tend to profile the actors and overgeneralize about them. (like what yours truly have done in this post)

By the way, Nasir, the overbearing Arab expat, is none other than the Egyptian/American comedian Ahmad Ahmad. But as it turns out here, he could manage non-comedic roles just as well.

All the above notwithstanding, the movie is really well-made and engaging. I highly recommend it.

Reflection on Independence

2010-04-17T19:15:00.002+04:00

Independence. What could be a grander occasion than a nation gaining its freedom from colonization? Syria, on the 17th of April 1947 gained its independence from the French after the last soldier of the French army regiment stationed there had departed our shores. Or perhaps he/she’d taken the bus. No one really cares how he or she had removed his or her sorry ass from our land. The French occupation was known to be benign, as compared to the British one, which was more controlling and repressive. The French’s is popularly deemed a ‘cultural’ colonization. The British’s is economical. But it’s colonization nonetheless. It is worth mentioning that the French/British sharing of the Levant had come after the Arabs, in the person of Sheriff Hussayn (the leader of the Arab uprising against the Ottoman empire), had coordinated their fighting of the Turks with the two European nations (more specifically with the Brits) who were also grappling with the ailing Ottoman empire in the events of the first world war.

What followed from this coordination is a classic cloak and dagger act by the colonial powers. The level of deceit and treason is present in two manifestations; first is the Sykes-Picot Agreement which sliced the Levant into four states that will be put under the control of both accordingly, despite promises made to Sheriff Hussayn that Arabs shall have the right to self-determination. The second one, the more ominous and dangerous one, was the Belfour Declaration. The pledge made by her majesty to allot a homeland for the Jewish folks of the world in Palestine. A bequest made by those who do not own to those who do not deserve, the thing that had put things in motion for a conflict that left millions of Palestinian refugees; robbed out of their lands and their livelihood, and more than a hundred thousands Arabs and Jews dead. A region still haunted by wars and instability. A belligerent nation that exercise apartheid rule over its residents, and a continuous tension that threatens to erupt into a war at any moment.

However, we can't just blame everything on colonial powers. The French occupation ceased to exist the moment we had our independence. Independence. What a versatile and all-inclusive word. Which could mean anything from the withdrawal of occupying powers to the self-reliance of young women on themselves through work and development, to a free thinking mind that is only restrained by the laws of science and logic.

How have we been doing at the latter? Well, I’m in pain to say not very well. We are still dependent on a whole set of social and traditional arrangements that are thought to be ideal to serve us, when, in my humble opinion, they’re stifling us and hindering change. Despite our keen experimentation with socialism and Arab nationalism, it’s clear that both hadn’t worked very well due to reasons I shall not get into now. Maybe it’s time we stop pondering and over-analyzing history. History books are all too well; they’re heavy and make for a great leisurely read. But what we need for a real and substantive independence is a hard look at ourselves in the present time. I’m not an expert on change, and we can all go on endlessly pontificating about its merits and why it’s applicable or not in our case. However, change, like independence, is a state of mind. Feeling in harmony with the world around you. Being in sync with the progress that is made all around. Communicating with others with grace and confidence. Having something to contribute to the collective human output. Being open to different ideas and accepting of others.

Change starts with a conviction; being convinced that idea B is better than idea A. Actions and adjustment will follow easily.

Happy Syria Independence Day, everyone!

Me and Grub

2010-04-10T18:27:00.003+04:00

I have a tenuous and devious relationship with food. I’m not usually fussy. I can eat anything that is a) Halal (not only for religious reasons) b) Not alive.

Oh, and, to the chagrin of captain Pope-eye, I can’t eat anything spinach.

The only kind of food that I’m a little particular about is sweets. I love sweets. And, should it prove to be a healthy practice, I could eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Sweets are, in their own right, an entire industry in my home town, complete with diabetes clinics. You don’t know Aleppo enough if you’re not familiar with Mahrouseh or Saloura (who isn’t Aleppine, by the way). And people have gotten sophisticated about it. The thing about sweets is that it’s become very hard to make them at home. Look at all other Levant dishes; they are best sampled from home-cooking. Except sweets. At least, that is my experience. My cousins are moderately famous makers of a certain type of sweets called She’ebiyat (thin patches of dough, wrapped around a mixture of nuts or Ishta (concentrated whipped cream) – toasted together in the oven-- with sugar syrup on top). And the way they’ve developed their business is impressive. They add and subtract endlessly to the quantities. And most importantly, they guard their secrets with vengeance.

Right. Moving on from sweets, I have very few food preferences. As I said above, I’m not really that fussy. But there’s one proviso here; I’m one of those people whose mood is somewhat affected by the food they eat, and therefore I usually choose what I eat accordingly.

Sea food and well-done chicken fillet make me feel happy. Mlukhiah (cooked ground corchorus) makes me sad. Fruits and salads, believe it or not, have neutral effect. Kebbeh makes me irritated. Grilled stuff makes me sleepy. And spicy food, for the lack of a better word, makes me feel stupid……

The Gems of Michael Young

2010-04-08T11:11:00.003+04:00

Ever since it’d become clear that Israel is actually a burden and not an asset as far as American interests in the region are concerned, the pro-Israel pundits have gone on a frenzy, trying all sorts of arguments and hypotheses to demonstrate that Israel’s behavior (war crimes, illegal settlements, desecration of Holy sites, oppression of Palestinians ..etc..), this behavior coupled with US conditional support, aren't really a significant problem for US and its interests in the region.

One of those is Michael Young, the editor-in-chief of the Daily Star. He writes an op-ed every Thursday for The National newspaper. And while his pieces vacillate between the obscene and the down-right racist, his today’s piece is particularly nasty.

Let’s have a look:

One of these has been the “resistance” card – the notion that because Israel does not want peace, the best option for Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular is to pursue armed struggle.

As we all know, and Michael Young is well aware, Israel demonstrates its desire for peace everyday. Latest gesture was the killing of four unarmed civilians in West Bank.

Also according to Young, Iran is the root of all evil in the Middle East and maybe it is even responsible for the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements and thus hindering peace process.

Here’s another gem:

The US is disliked, and will continue to be disliked even after a Palestinian-Israeli settlement, because it is powerful.

Disliked because it’s powerful? Apart from the racist undertone in this line of thought, let’s suppose that the US is indeed ‘hated’ because it’s powerful, how could you then explain the strong ties and alliances between some Arab states and other powerful—very powerful—states around the world? (e.g. the late USSR, China, France ..etc..?)

Actually, Mr Bush’s problem was that he stumbled in Iraq. If no one likes powerful nations, what people despise most is a nation that fails to use its power effectively.

How are we to interpret GWB’s 'stumbling' and the 'effectiveness' of the war in this context? That more people should have been killed? More sectarian violence flared up? According to Young, certainly the concept of illegally invading Iraq isn’t a mistake; it’s ‘stumbling’ in its quagmire that is harmful to US image of power. Maybe the US should have spent more money, got itself into more debt, got more of its youth deployed and killed. That would sure help bolster American strength and image alright.

Worst than being hated is not being feared.

I wonder how successful Michael Young would be should he choose to change his career into marriage counseling; the unmistakable message here is that fear serves American interests best. Fear is the best propeller of cooperation. Fear doesn’t beget hate. Instilling fear in those sand niggers is what Obama needs.

And you wonder why Bush ‘stumbled’ in Iraq.

But maybe I should be thankful, at least Michael Young hasn’t pulled a Lady Gaga on us.

"The Sound of Freedom"

2010-04-06T08:59:00.004+04:00

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the former Washington Post Baghdad Bureau chief, had written a book about his experience in the Green Zone. Among the 'revealing' things he'd mentioned, was a story about a General. Some reporters, having heard complaints from Iraqi families about the loud noise of helicopters during the night and how it's scaring children, asked him about it. He replied that they should appreciate the 'sounds of freedom'. I thought this story pretty much sums up the entire war. You think you'd heard it all -- all the delusion and lies -- until you come across something more horrific and bewildering.

You've probably seen this video already. First of all, be warned it's a graphic material, and, even if you're accustomed to video games where dead bodies are perforated like sieves with machine-guns, this video is bound to make your blood boil. If it doesn't, I recommend psychotherapy.

First of all, American army has no business being in Iraq. Period. This war is illegal by any metric you chose to use (except the metric of Michael Young, perhaps.)

Apart from the obvious, what I find sickening about this video is this:

The ROE of the US army in Iraq, it seems, allows the gunner to shoot anyone who's armed. And to do so from the helicopter without caring to discern who's armed with real weapons and who's just slinging a camera over his shoulder.

The ROE allows for the gunner to shoot the entire group of people when only one or two are armed.

The US army can shoot at armed people without being provoked: but what if these guys on the grounds were worried about sectarian violence? patrolling the streets to repel thugs or mobs? What do you say, O you who believe in the second amendment?

It seems to me that had the Reuters cameramen not been amongst the dead, NO ONE WOULD HAVE FUCKING HEARD OR CARED.

Even though the guy who was being medivac-ed was seriously wounded, they didn't only shoot at him, but also at the van rescuing him without knowing or caring who's inside (turned out it's two children). And what about the driver and the other guy who was helping him? does the ROE manual says that anyone who's medivac-ing suspected armed persons shall be shot without warning?

But maybe I shouldn't be so sick to my stomach. After all, these bullets, like the whine of the rotor, are the 'sounds of freedom'.

...

Next Friday is the 7th anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.

2010-03-23T22:41:00.003+04:00

It's now past 10 PM. I'd slept for probably an hour. It was such a rejuvenating bliss. All the dreams that I experience here about back home are true. True in their images, senses and care-free novelty. True in their embryonic form of happiness. I can revisit those long walks at night, where the roads are damp and the traffic is retreating.

I walk through the night, with a friend, talking about nothing, talking about everything. And I smell scents that are true. And I see reflections of the old oaks and cypresses, cast by the neon streetlights, on the damp roads. I see all my walks leading, as they always do, to where my first sweetheart lived. I see myself walking in circles around the block. My friend knows about her, of course, and he doesn't mind, for tomorrow we're walking around the block where his sweetheart lives.

We keep walking through the infinite night. An occasional car pauses at the intersection and its rear lights fill the night with red, a reminder of a love that hadn't been consummated. But I walk on nonetheless, around the same block, for the wounds have mended and yet I still come back to where she lives, and walk around the block. I'm not a child anymore, and yet I'm not a grownup. I'm irresponsible in my own level of honesty. Even the 'depraved' carnal images are pure. So we compare notes, me and my friends, about what we saw from the balconies of our childhood, or later, leaning against a wooden telephone pole and watching high school girls stream by.

My friend is smart; all my friends are smart, in their own way. And we talk about nothing, or everything. What we study in school always comes up, what she studies in school always comes up. I have now learned the ultimate truth: who hasn't excelled at the favorite subject of his first sweetheart? Who hadn't sat in class, in the back, through all the sessions, watching from afar, or from near, imperceptibly picking up the words, furtively seeking a glance. Who hasn't excelled to impress? I did, I have the proof of words and memories; taped from my vantage point as I watch from the back.

And so when we walk, me and my friend, we don't really run out of things to say, there is always the thing she said, in class, while savoring her favorite subject. There is always the things I said, in class, savoring her subject on her behalf. There's an undying eagerness there, a constant yearning for tomorrow's challenge. No walk has ever been mundane. All feelings have been christened here. The sounds have been chiseled with the care of a master sculpture; I kick the crunched can, and it reverberates through the stillness. A dog yaps from a distance. A leave emits a different tune, when kicked, and, pregnant with rainwater, it won't travel far. And the conifer scents are all true. No breath ever smells the same, as we inhale the black, damp air.

I part the company of my friend and keep on walking home. It's few miles away, but there is no option of transport at this hour. No worries there, no concerns, not a single pause. As I walk and replay the words. And the conversations. The challenges. I am light-headed and sprightly. I've got nothing on me but heavy winter clothes. And the keys. My shoes scuff at the old steps, yet another ingenuity of sound. I open up the door and walk in. There is no home like your own. And I'm the owner of the night. But the night is about to excuse herself to give way to sleep.

I yawn as I give my mother a silent salute, she's drowsing on the sofa watching muted TV. She asks me why I'm late. And return to the TV before she even completes the question. Why I'm late? I ... I don't know. I'd never known. But I'm always late. I never timed my rounds around the block, never counted them. I change clothes in the dark and insert myself in the bed.

The proprietor of the night is about to be put to sleep, may we play the highlights of the day for him? Thank you.

And here they come, shadows on the ceiling, cast by the neon streetlights. Refracted by the damp roads and a million other detail. My demands are met with diligence, and the images play themselves for my benefit. I don't need to urge tomorrow to be good, or better, or to behave. Tomorrow is when I excel. Tomorrow is up to me. Tomorrow never lies. Tomorrow is made true by tonight. And the image of her, on the wooden seat-- sitting through her favorite subject, with grace and due attention-- is the last thing I see before an invisible hand draws the curtains closed with gentleness. And I feel them, I hear their hissing and chafing, and I smell their softness and their promise, for when they'll draw open again. And that's the last thing I do, before I close my eyes and hand over the keys of the night, to yet another happy, wandering soul.

Emirates Airlines International Festival of Literature (photos and comments)

2010-03-16T11:32:00.009+04:00

From the fringe events: art, dancing, acting and debates.

(Photo by Shruti)

Suzzane Hussieni (a Canadian gourmet and gastronome)

(Photo by Shruti)
Paul Plezard (left) being interviewed. Best thing about this festival is the publicity (through photographs, interviews, and blogging) that was done by volunteers.

(by Wajiha)

Hisham Wyne. (a Huff Post writer and trouble maker)

(by Wajiha)

Aren't the kids adorable?

(by Wajiha)
Alexander and Eman.

(by Wajiha)
One of the acting groups on a fringe activity. (brilliant shot!)

(by Wajiha)
(Photo by Shruti)

Volunteers were live-tweeting the event on twitter.

(by Wajiha)

(Photo by Shruti)

A brilliant shot of the instant translator.

(by Shruti)

The social media session.

(by Shruti)

The social media session.

(Photo by Shruti)

The obligatory shot of officials. (during inauguration ceremony)

(Photo by Shruti)

Jeffery Deaver, one of my favorite crime writers of all time ( the "Bone Collector" movie was based on one of his novels). He describes himself as an illusionist.

(Photo by Shruti)

(by Wajiha)
(by Wajiha)

Visit Wajiha's and Shruti's albums for more photos!

A Letter to my Mother

2010-03-14T16:34:00.002+04:00

Dear mom,

There are those prudes who regard Mothers Day as a heresy. I really don’t care about them. I’d rather seize every opportunity to wish you a happy, healthy and a content living.

But there is more to this that just wishing, isn’t there, mom? I’ve got so many things to say that can't be articulated through phone calls. So I decided to make my confusion official, I decided to put my concerns in writing.

Life’s good mom. It really is. But I doubt if this is the case for the thousands of men in uniform I meet everyday. There are those whose souls had hardened into faces of perpetual pleading. “They toil under the sun all day“, we kept saying, on and on. Until it was decided that that saga had gotten old. And thus toiling under the sun was outlawed. Now only toiling under a benign sun is permissible. And when the sun isn’t benign, then “laboring in the confines of concrete infernos” is the alternative.

Oh mom, the disparity of income is appalling. Social injustice is appalling. I, as you know, grew up in the protective shell of our household. In an egalitarian society, where everyone was entitled to tastes and colors. (Do you remember the cakes that your students used to give you as gifts at Teachers Day? They were the most delicious.) An egalitarian society that, for all its other ills, allowed everyone a modicum of dignity. Money making, mom, seems to be the archenemy of dignity these days. And we’re not egalitarian anymore. We are going corporate. We’ve joined the trend. And this is why I don’t recognize my hometown anymore. It’s a jumble of indeterminate socio-economical experiments. It’s probably a world-wide ailment; that money-making. The morning drive to work is almost surreal, mom. It’s like a form of liturgy. Where we all end up prostrating before the impotent gods of money.

But I’m different, mom. You know me. I give them a hard time. I ain’t going down without a fight. I’m a prick in the office. Me and the other guys, we’ve got different drives. They’ve got beards and expecting wives, mom. And they are losing. Their commuting ritual is performed with excellence. Not a single diversion from the grand plan. Me. I’m a prick, mom. A prick to them. I’ve got other drives. I’ve got different plans and differing routes. And they know this, but they don’t know what those plans are. So they steer clear. Moral clarity is empowering. Nothing beats a prick with moral clarity.

We have the tallest building in the world now, mom. Or I should probably say the highest. Since tall things are measured in their abstract. While the building we have here must be taken in context. Do you remember how I used to be scared of heights, mom? You instilled this in me. (please, I’m not blaming you, I just need to get this off my chest). I was 18 months old. Out on the vast verandah. My tiny body stuck out over the handrail from the waist up. I was probably about to travel the 15 meters journey into our neighbor’s garden if it wasn’t for your intervention. From then on, I was constantly admonished about balconies and high perches. About roofs and window shutters that open outward. The fear had become real. I don’t know if I told you this. There was a period when I was constantly having nightmares about falling off the balcony. (not the vast verandah fronting the apartment, but the kitchen balcony where I had my first erection watching our neighbor’s daughter peg the laundry on strings to dry.) But the nightmares weren’t always dry, mom……. (I probably shouldn’t tell you this. It feels awkward). Anyway… I’ve overcome my fear of heights, mom. I don’t fear them anymore. It seems pointless from the rational point of view. A thirty storey building is as dangerous as the thirty-thousands-feet-high airplane up in the stratosphere.

Perhaps I shouldn’t complain a lot, though. There are things that had turn for the better. I’m no longer superstitious, mom. I’ve shed all my superstitious clothing. Science have won mom. It’s really over. It’s a matter of time before the dust clears and everyone realizes it. Science took over everything. It even teaches people how to love now: “Want to feel closer to someone, try secret swapping, you both write secrets down on cards and exchange!” !1!one!. Ain’t that amazing? I should probably be thrilled. But why am I not, mom? Why the moral struggle continues to haunt people? Why emotional conflicts continue to wreck havoc on individuals and institutions alike? We’re a flawed specie, mom. Having discovered the amygdala, we’re still under its spell. A quick look at the number of armed conflicts and the volumes of military budgets would tell you this. We’re still lead by the enzymes. The primal forces are still within us. And this is why certain individuals, (not to be confused with the prudes) would stop talking altogether and go seek solitary in nature. They ache to connect with our primal ancestors. They yearn to reverse the mad sequence of evolution and to discard intellect.

But life’s good mom. It really is. Remember when you caught me talking on the phone with a girl when I was thirteen years old? We didn’t have cells at the time, mom. Not even caller’s ID. Oh, how easy and fun it was; phone harassment. Anybody could ring anybody up and say whatever the hell he or she wanted. I’d built my street lingo through these conversations, mom. Until that day when you caught me. Then I promised I wouldn’t do it again. And I kept the promise until this very day.

I don’t talk to girls on the phone anymore, mom. We just text. Everyone is texting these days. Bet you didn’t think of that when you made me pledge. Technology made an end run around justice for us. Although in fairness to technology, we’ve also been screwed by it a little. We can’t phone-harass any longer. Don’t get me wrong mom. I don’t want to harass anybody. It’d just be nice to build up that street lingo once again.

To be continued.....

Secularism, Resistance and Schizophrenia (translation)

2010-03-08T16:43:00.002+04:00

(Since I love my English-speaking readers who are all awesome, here's a rough and discretionary translation of my yesterday's post in Arabic.)

There’s an ongoing and evolving debate in the Syrian blogsphere these days. And unlike in the past, where insults were hurled and there were plenty of polarization between the Secular and Islamist bloggers, this time around the tone is much more polite and civil. So I decided to pitch in with my two cents.

The subject matter is vast and complicated. My friends Anas and Yassin had addressed most of the questions put forward by the instigator of the debate. There are, nonetheless, few points that I’d like to touch on quickly.

Another Anas, a Syrian blogger who’s apparently an avid opponent of secularism, had pointed out what he believes damning evidence that Arab Secularists are sick with schizophrenia. (for the record, my friend Kate, a psychiatrist, tells me the usage of ‘schizophrenia’ here is erroneous). The thing that had exposed the ailment of Arab secularists is that they, in overwhelming majority, are supportive of Islamic resistance movement in Lebanon and Palestine (namely Hezbollah and Hamas). Our friend Anas offers two reasons to explain this dichotomy:

- Arab Secularists are the cultural byproduct of a long-living and glorious Islamic civilization that had ruled most of the world at a certain point in history. Thus, subconsciously, they know that there will be no progress and revival without resorting to (political) Islam. (Honestly, I won’t even bother responding to this nonsense).

- Arab Secularists will have a pact with the devil if the devil decided to fight Israel. And thus, when Islamic resistance movement decide to take up arms, there is no objection on their part.

First, let me assure you that the devil would never be my ally in the struggle against Israel, quite the opposite. If groups like Al Qaeda had proposed themselves as an alternative to the Palestinian struggle they would have been rejected straight away. Also, a white supremacist anti-semite like David Duke isn’t a friend of the Palestinians. I have great reservations about Holocaust deniers posing themselves as saviors of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian cause, in my opinion, is just and whole and complete in its humanist perspective. And it could do without supporters who are racist or extremist with hidden agendas.

What I support (I don’t speak on the behalf of others) is the unalienable right of occupied population to resist occupation and aggression in all forms possible. This is a right guaranteed by the international law. It is, as I like to call it, a state of political whoredom that makes the international community (in parts) acquiesce to Israel’s (and by extension, the US’s) labeling of resistance movements as terrorist organizations. That doesn’t at all mean that they are. The international law relies on humanist and moralistic principles, and it doesn't deny an oppressed population the right to opt for violent resistance as a mean of a struggle for freedom.

I’ll digress here further just to point out the hypocrisy of the US foreign policy (and the western 'bloc' in general). It’s certainly not wrong for any country, let alone a superpower, to look after its interests. Or to adopt policies that are expedient. But to assume high moral grounds while doing so is the ultimate act of skullduggery. Examine for instance the position taken towards the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the 80s. Then, armed resistance was the way forward. Invoking MLK, the non-violent protests, and civil disobedience methods of the civil rights movement was nowhere to be seen. In fact, the CIA had supplied the Afghan Mujahedeen with arms and high tech Stingers and money and logistics worth billions of dollars. Political whoredom? The least you could say about it.

At the same time, we shouldn’t forget that there are leftist and secular movements around the world that support the Palestinian and the Lebanese people right to resist.

And to make the distinction clearer: supporting resistance doesn’t necessitate supporting the religious rhetoric or creed that may come along with it. As Dr. Azmi Beshara (the dean of Arab intellectuals) said in a speech once; We don’t support resistance on the basis of what’s religious and what’s secular. And if the conditions were better and milder, I’d be severely critical of the way Gaza is being governed.

Do you still call that schizophrenia? I call it the epitome of moral and intellectual clarity.

Let me reiterate my reservation, and rejection, of the religious rhetoric that is usually shoved in with the resistance speech. I refuse to “elevate the word of Allah” through the force of weapons. If your ultimate vision is to liberate land and obtain your usurped rights, then by all means do that. But if your vision is to persecute Jews, the enemies of Allah, then I can’t at all be supportive (I’m here not at all claiming that all religious rhetoric is that extreme, however, there are few wingnuts who possess such disturbing ideas). If you intend to ‘elevate the word of Allah’ on earth, then you better do that through calm and meaningful dialog. Peaceful, non-coercive proselytizing is also acceptable in a free secular society. When you speak of minds and convictions, the use of force becomes irrelevant, unlike when in the case of oppression or persecution, where you have material rights that have been taken away from you (and accordingly, the use of force becomes somewhat understandable). Coercion has never been a healthy way to win people’s hearts and minds. On the contrary, intellectual repression is repulsive and insulting to the endowments that makes mankind an assortment of intelligent beings.

علمانية و مقاومة و إنفصام شخصية (Secularism, Resistance and Schizophrenia)

2010-03-07T23:20:00.006+04:00

(To my dear English readers, there's an ongoing debate about Secularism and Political Islam on the Syrian blogsphere. You can read an excellent translation of the highlights of this debate here. In the meantime, I'll try to translate this post myself, whenever I find the time and energy.)

هنالك حوار مستمر و متطور في الفضاء التدويني السوري جارٍ حالياً, و على غير العادة فإن الموضوع, رغم حساسيته و شجونه, قد نوقش بطريقة راقية و مهذبة حتى الآن. و هذا ما يشجعني على الخوض في غمار النقاش غير عابئٍ بما قد يؤول إليه في ظل المماحكات السابقة بين العلمانيين و المتدينين من المدونين. و التي وصلت إلى حدود تبادل الإهانات و السخرية لا بل و الشتيمة أحيانا (معاذ الله)..ء

الموضوع بالطبع طويل و متشعب. و قد قام صدقاي أنس و ياسين بالإجابة على معظم التساؤلات المطروحة. و لكني أريد هنا أن أمر بسرعة على أفكار معينة تستحق الاسهاب.

كان المدون الأخ أنس (غير أنس المذكور أعلاه), قد طرح تساؤلات مهمة في ما يخص العلمانيين العرب و واقعهم الحالي و قناعاتهم. و بطريقة درامية قام بتسمية بعض الظواهر الفكرية و الميول لدى العلمانيين بانفصام الشخصية. و الظاهرة الأهم التي لا يستطيع الأخ أنس أن يجد لها مسوغا أو مبررا في البنية الفكرية للعلمانيين العرب هي أنهم في الغالب (90% أو أكثر) يؤيدون حركات المقاومة و التحرر الإسلامية في فلسطين و لبنان. و يمضي أنس في محاولته لتبرير هذه الظاهرة و يطرح لها سببين:

أولهما يكاد يكون أقرب إلى السريالي و اللاشعوري, و هو أن العلمانيين العرب هم وليدو ثقافة و تاريخ و حضارة إسلامية عريقة كانت قد سادت العالم في حقبة معينة. و أن هذه الثقافة قد تشربت إلى حامضهم النووي, فهم غير قادرون على التخلي عنها رغم رفضهم الظاهر لها, و بسبب قناعة موجودة لهم في العقل الباطن أن خلاصهم الوحيد هو الإسلام (أنا هنا أعيد صياغة ما كتبه الأخ بغرض الاختصار).

ثانيهما أن العلمانيين العرب سيشجعون الشيطان لو أنه وقف في وجه إسرائيل و تصدى لها. فلو أراد الإسلاميون ذلك, فأهلا و سهلا.

أولاً, دعوني أؤكد لكم أنني لا أقف مع الشيطان في مواجهة إسرائيل. بل على العكس. فلو أن عصبة مثل القاعدة طرحت نفسها كبديل مقاوم نيابة عن الشعب الفلسطيني لتم رفضها. كما نرفض أن يدعم قضيتنا شخصيات أمريكية و أوروبية معادية للسامية (معادية لليهودية) , و كما نتحفظ بشكل كبير على كل من يطرح نفسه مخلص للشعب الفلسطيني و لكنه في الوقت نفسه ينكر المحرقة النازية. القضية الفلسطينية, في رأيي, قضية عادلة و كاملة بمنظورها الإنساني البحت وغنية عن أن يغذيها و يدعمها أي من العنصريين أو المتطرفين من أصحاب الأجندات الخفية.

و هذا يقودني إلى الفكرة التالية و هي أنني شخصيا (لا أتحدث بالنيابة عن الجميع) أدعم من حيث المبدأ حق الشعبين الفلسطيني و اللبناني في الدفاع عن نفسيهما و تحرير أراضيهما و استرجاع الحقوق. خيار المقاومة المسلحة هو خيار تضمنه القوانين و التشريعات الدولية. و كون المجتمع الدولي يتصرف بطريقة العهر السياسي فيما يتعلق بالقضية الفلسطينية , و يرضخ لتصنيفات اسرائيل و الولايات المتحدة لهذه الحركات بأنها إرهابية, فهذا لا يعني أن القانون الدولي, و الذي مرجعيته الأخلاقية انسانية بالأساس, لا يبيح لهذه الشعوب المظلومة أن تتخذ سبيل المقاومة العنفية إذا لم يعد لها خيار.

من أكثر ما يثير الغيظ و يكشف مدى نفاق سياسات الدول الغربية و اعتمادها مبدأ المنفعية و الجري وراء المصالح, هو موقف أغلب هذه الدول من المقاومة الأفغانية للإحتلال السوفياتي في الثمانينات. حينها, لم يكن لدعاة اللاعنفية و لمحبذي الاحتذاء بطرق و أساليب حركة الحقوق المدنية التي قادها مارثن لوثر كنغ في أمريكا, لم يكن لهؤلاء صوت يذكر. لا بل قامت الاستخبارات الأمريكية بتسليح المقاومين و امدادهم بمليارات الدولارات. عهر سياسي؟ هذا أقل ما يمكن قوله في هذا السياق.

و هنا يجب أن نذكر بأن هنالك حركات يسارية و علمانية على مستوى العالم كله, و ليس الوطن العربي فحسب, تساند حق الشعب الفلسطيني في المقاومة المسلحة.

و بالمناسبة, مساندة حق المقاومة لا يعني مساندة الخطاب الديني المرافق لهذه الحركات في مجمله. فكما يقول الدكتور عزمي بشارة (عميد المفكرين العرب) , أنه لا يدعم المقاومة على أساس من هو ديني أو علماني, و أنه لو كانت الظروف أحسن و أخف وطئة, لكان له حديث قاسي في الطريقة التي تدار بها غزة.

أتسمي هذا إنفصام شخصية؟

و هنا يبرز موضوع التحفظ على الخطاب الديني الذي يتم زجه مع الخطاب المقاوم. فأنا بصراحة أرفض إعلاء كلمة الله في الأرض بقوة السلاح. نعم, إذا كان هدفك النهائي هو تحرير الأرض و المقدسات فأهلا و سهلا. أم إذا كان الهدف هو إبادة اليهود اعداء الله فإنني أختلف معك في الرأي و لا يمكنني أن أدعم هذا التوجه (أنا هنا لا أدعي أنا كل حملة الخطاب الديني يدعون بهذه الدعوة, و لكن بعض المتطرفين بالتأكيد يسوقون لها). و إذا أردت إعلاء كلمة الله في الأرض فمن الأجدى أن تمارس ذلك عن طريق الدعوة السلمية, لأنك بهذه الحالة تتحدث عن قناعات في عقول, و ليس عن حقوق مادية أخذت بالقوة يجب استرجاعها. و لم يكن الإكراه في أي وقت من الأوقات وسيلة لكسب عقول الناس بل على العكس, الإكراه الفكري منفر و مهين لملكات الإنسان العقلية التي وهبه إياها الخالق.

و للحديث بقية...