Saturday, Oct 4

UNEMPLOYMENT FUELING DEMOS: *While no surveys have been taken since the war, as much as 50% of the Iraqi population may now be out of work ... [snip] ... The coalition is taking some steps to tackle the issue.*

From Cesar G. Soriano, USA Today.

Saturday, Oct 4

CROP CIRCLE IN OHIO: *The Triskelion (Greek for three legs) is a symbol of the sun intended to express motion.* ::From Earthfiles.

Saturday, Oct 4

MUQTADA AL-SADR

The Further Peripatetics of . . .

A few mornings ago, the armed followers of a relatively upstart cleric called Muqtada al-Sadr turned up at a shrine in the adjoining town of Kufa. As pilgrims watched aghast, the thugs from Sadr's so-called Mahdi army beat and chased away the men who have been hereditary custodians for the site as long as anyone in Najaf can remember.

They then took control of the strongbox where donations from pilgrims are gathered, shearing off the three locks from the finance ministry, the community charitable trust and the keepers, which had served to regulate the funds for years. The bonanza was estimated to be worth several million dinars a week, enough for a steady supply of AK-47s. All of Najaf is talking about the affront.

...In the wake of the takeover, there is talk of a full-on battle for supremacy between the upstart cleric and more established religious leaders...

:: This is just a small, much more tightly focused excerpt from a longer itinerary and article by Suzanne Goldenberg about her impressions upon her return to Iraq found in The Guardian's Saturday edition, of October 4th, which see: "A land ruled by chaos."


:: Hello, Gorgeous! Get me Central Casting . . .

--- Methinks we need a Dramaturge to come up with
--- a Scenario to distract this guy.

Saturday, Oct 4

THE BRIGHTMAN CONNECTION: *It's obvious from her latest promotional video that Sarah Brightman is a fan of all things Middle Eastern. And this week sees the launch of her new album Harem.*

Brightman was mentioned here recently. This link explains the connection to the previous news story.

:: From BBC Breakfast Show.

Saturday, Oct 4

IRISH PUBS SMOKING REVOLT: *Publicans in the south-west of the Irish Republic have pledged to ignore a ban on smoking due to take effect in 2004.* :: From the BBC.

:: And "Living is fatal."

-- "Driving may endanger your health."

Friday, Oct 3

THE WAITING ROOM: *Every morning Mr Salim, one of the most senior administrative officials at the airline, dutifully arrives at the office of Iraqi Airways, on a corner of Saddoun Street in central Baghdad.*

:: From an article at The Guardian
-- by Rory McCarthy in Baghdad.

Thursday, Oct 2

POLICE CHICK! - Meet Capt Malalai Kakar, the policewoman in Kandahar, Afghanistan. This is a wonderful feature story.

Kakar throws a cloak over her uniform when she ventures out in public. It has some advantages. She can move through public often faster and with a lower profile, calling less attention to herself and making it easier to get the drop on the bad guys.

Hey, Psst: There's room for a pistol under that cloak. And she can stick a shiv up her sleeve if she needs to. So don't mess with bess!

:: Feature story by Leela Jacinto at ABCNews.

Thursday, Oct 2

EULOGIES: Have you ever been called upon to write a eulogy? Some years ago, I was. I found it difficult. When someone dies, one is not is in a good state of mind to gather one's thoughts. And what do you want communicate? A eulogy can't be too long. You don't want to drone on and on. The news media just needs an immediate reaction. They'll grab whatever someone can manage to verbalize, it seems. But the people who may be the most impacted may be too traumatized to express themselves.

Edward T. Said died recently. I didn't know much about him. Here's what I thought I knew: He was a literature professor at Columbia University who was of Arabic heritage. And, on the side, he sometimes took public positions on the Arab-Israeli conflict. In truth, I just never paid any attention to him. For me, he was one professor in America out of hundreds or maybe thousands. Nothing special.

What interests me at this point, I suppose, is what was so special about him that touched other people-- maybe not you or me-- but, obviously, he touched some people.

As Time goes on, the weekly publications and then the monthly publications begin to appear with their more eloquent eulogies. And, perhaps, some of these, will give us some more insight into what it was about him that so touched others.

:: This first eulogy at the Village Voice Weekly was written by Moustafa Bayoumi.

:: The second piece I came across by chance while I was looking for something else. It's from The Nation.

I expect that over the course of the next several months, and at this year's end, more pieces about him will be published. And in one or two or more of these memorials we may find some clues or insights into how this unique soul resonated with others.

Thursday, Oct 2

SHOWBIZ HOTSIES: "We live for this stuff," Joan Rivers once put it. And lots of people do seem to love reading about entertainers who create a fuss. There are, of course, significant differences in how different societies react. In America, someone's behavior might evoke booing or heckling. But in other societies, entertainers could be executed or seriously penalized.

One incident above many others still sticks out in my mind. I heard a taped interview on the radio once with an eyewitness to an incident in Chile in which a large group of people were rounded up and detained in a soccer stadium. And then a popular folk singer who was opposed to the regime in power had his hands chopped off. I no longer remember his name. But it became an infamous incident.

There are often scandals in the showbiz world. Many of them involve marriages or romances. But some of them have political overtones. And in some societies, that can spell Big Trouble.

Today's "hot" situation involves an Iraqi singer named Kathem El Saher.

Kuwait is prohibiting Iraqi singers. One singer in particular seems to have triggered this fuss: Kathem El Saher. The mob considers him to be an "associate" of Saddam Hussein's regime and a "traitor" for working with the "Jewish" British singer Sarah Brightman. After ripping up El Saher's posters, the mob is after the Kuwaiti Minister of Information for "allowing" the posters which advertise El Saher's upcoming album to be posted in public spaces. They've demanded his albums be pulled from music stores. And they are demanding a total ban and boycott on him and all Iraqi entertainers. According to some reports, chaos has ensued from all this.

Thursday, Oct 2

SIGHTINGS: *Saddam Hussein was reportedly seen in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk five days ago and is moving in increasingly smaller circles in order to evade capture, Jalal Talabani, a leading member of Iraq's governing council, said yesterday.*

And in the Cryptozoology Dept, Investigator Jimmy Chilcutt of the Conroe Police Department in Texas, who specialises in finger and footprints, has said he believes he is certain around six footprints found-- claimed to have been made by Bigfoot-- are genuine.

Thursday, Oct 2

VAGUELY UNDERCOVER: I was delighted to notice that Riverbend has serendipitously found Danny Schechter ("The News Dissector"). Danny is a nice guy, and she could do a lot worse than to learn from him.

For the sophisticated American readers of weblogs, this is old-hat stuff. But for our newly liberated friends in Eastern Europe and Iraq, Danny has set a pedagogical mission for himself to teach mainly youngsters in the West as well as others, to be more aware of the dynamics of how the mass media operates and tries to influence media consumers.

I try to drop in on Danny once a week or so, but since 9/11 and the war in Iraq, there's a lot more information out there that I think I should scan. I find myself skimming much of it, rather than reading it. And I do want to leave some time to read what I enjoy.

So, what's new on Danny's weblog lately?
He provides a link to:

Writer's Block by Sheryl Oring

Speaking of Riverbend, in her Oct 1st entry, she performs a very useful service by identifying the different "coverings" observant women use and by distinguishing one from another. Enough of that vague "veil" thing already!

Wednesday, Oct 1

THE PASSING OF FLEET STREET: A very nicely written piece from The Guardian. If you enjoy good writing, snatch a glance at this one.

:: Clip-n-Save ::

I saved it in RTF with Wordpad.

It's a keeper :-)

Wednesday, Oct 1

WHAT COMES AFTER: *Meanwhile, the legacy lives. Like George Steinbrenner, Bollinger has recruited a new superstar for Columbia's "realm of ideas." Rashid Khalidy is now the enforcer of Arab authenticity in Morningside Heights, and he's got the title to prove it: Edward Said professor of Middle Eastern studies.*

:: Excerpted from an op-ed piece

-- by Zev Chafets at the NY Daily News.

Tuesday, Sept 30

New website to jot down. Yamin Zakaria in London has established a website which highlights the plight of a purported 6000 prisoners kept in detention without charge or legal representation.

Prisoners of the West

Yes, I think we should give them back their hoods and masks and then turn them loose in the wild as paintball targets. Cuba could probably make a lot of tourist money off that event. And, fortunately, Cuba is an island.

Tuesday, Sept 30

SEC POWELL TO DETROIT FORUM: Close to 1,000 U.S. and Arab policy, business, social and technology officials are in Detroit for this week's U.S.-Arab Economic Forum...

*There is "no clash of civilizations" between the U.S and Arab world," Powell said, but "only a struggle to defend values ... which we share with the West and the vast majority of Arabs."*

:: From an article at CNN.

Tuesday, Sept 30

THE VOYEURS: It is sometimes very strange to observe how the Arab Media follows every incident and event involving the Jewish state so lasciviously that they often seem to be drooling over it. It is useful then, at those moments, to remember that because they do not enjoy comparable freedom in their own Arab socieities, their gratification is limited to this kind of frustrated voyeurism.

If the relationship between the Arab media and Israel is neurotic, how about the strange problems that have cropped up between the new state of Iraq and the two Arabic Sat TV network stations?!

Mustafa Alrawi, the managing editor of Iraq Today, wrote:

*Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya have taken advantage of the complaining to make the case that the US is unjust and cruel. In so doing, they imply that the former regime was neither, sullying the memory of Saddam’s victims. The stations’ Arab viewers lap it up because they largely live in countries without democracy. They don’t know what freedom really is. We have freedom in Iraq now, and we know what it is.*

:: Excerpted from Alrawi's commentary
-- for The Daily Star.

Monday, Sept 29

What happened to Daniel . . . *Bernard-Henri Lévy, France's most famous philosopher, goes looking for answers in his chilling investigation into the murder of an American journalist, Who Killed Daniel Pearl?*

Book Review by Peter Guttridge
for The Observer

Monday, Sept 29

PRAIRIE DOG VACUUM: *For the past 12 years, Balfour and his custom-made vacuum have rumbled across the West, sucking up prairie dogs like so much lint from a sprawling shag carpet.

The animals, which resemble pudgy, barking squirrels, are beloved and despised in Colorado... *

Monday, Sept 29

HEDGEHOG PRESERVATION: Gives detailed directions. Looks like it's mostly a gardeners' thing. You've got questions? They've got answers.

Monday, Sept 29

ALMOST DARK: Few Newspapers Covering Afghanistan. Editors Say They Lack Resources.

:: Article by Joe Strupp
-- at Editor and Publisher Magazine.

Monday, Sept 29

ANIMOSITY: Chilling account of Aqila al-Hashimi's funeral procession related by Prof Juan Cole, apparently drawn from al-Sharq al-Awsat material he may have translated.

Gosh, but Muqtada al-Sadr is beginning to sound like some fiend who wandered into this scene from an H. Rider Haggard novel. Why can't we just lash him to a camel saddle and then send the camel out of town with him on it? Perhaps he will dry his hair with a wet hair dryer. Some people are accident-prone that way.

:: From *Informed Consent* Blog

-- Sat, Sept 27th Entry, 7:29 AM

Sunday, Sept 28

COZY NUMBER CRUNCHING: *Kuwait and Saudi Arabia should give up their reparation claims for Iraq's 1990 invasion and the subsequent Persian Gulf War because those two wealthy countries have 10 times the amount of money that Iraq does, L. Paul Bremer, the American administrator for Iraq said Friday.*

:: Uh-oh! Bremer took a closer look at the books and... it looks like something nasty is going on there.

Apparently, Bremer was in Washington this weekend and held a press conference. I don't know if he did the Sunday talkshow circuit, too.

:: From an article by Pamela Hess
-- of UPI at the WashTimes.

Sat-Sun Overnight, Sept 28

LOOSE LINKS:

- Sartre, Pursued by a Lobster
- by Jim Holt :: at Slate

- Weird Wiltshire, UK ... strange stuff

- What are Kellas Cats? ... answers.

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According to the BBC over the radio, the power is out all over Italy.