I keep thinking I should post something, unable to decide if it should be pictures, or a pointed editorial, or an excerpt from the update emails I've been getting from my NGO about the situation, or what ( Read more... )

This year, in Egypt, my Dad mailed me three CDs. One is by Natasha Atlas. It is Arabic and European-dance and it is awesome. Another was U2's October. I have barely listened to it but will when I have the right amount of attention to give to it. The third is The Arcade Fire's Funeral. It's really great that my dad searched out some hip new ( Read more... )

On our way out the door of the church compound where I live, the bawab handed us two sheets of paper that had arrived in the mail. He doesn't know English, so he thought the mail might be for us. "Just take them," he told us, although the green card applications were, very obviously, not for us ( Read more... )

But seriously... Is it true there's some American or British band out there right now with a cover of that Bangles song (YOU KNOW which one) and that there's some Egyptian or otherwise Arabic song sampled in it? What's the deal, who's the band, and what's the sampled song ( Read more... )

So I just got back from a "wedding" which in America and English is more like "engagement party" where the bride and groom exchanged rings and everybody crowded into this little apartment and where surprisingly I was not even pressured to dance and where this man with a huge beard and a noticeable but not austentatious "raisin" asked me what I ( Read more... )

Will somebody PLEASE go to this?

I actually don't know anything about the artists. I mostly just think the title is AWESOME.

"This was a generation that felt betrayed by the slogans of the past- by shrill nationalism and half-baked socialism and hollow democracy. Looking for a source of hope, Cairo's disappointed, left-behind youth found a simple message plastered now on walls all over the city. The message said, Islam is the Solution."

-Max Rodenbeck in Cairo: The ( Read more... )

....for alerting me to the fact that Hugo Chavez is helping heat Philadelphia homes???

What a weird world.

I have so many emails to write or blog entries I wish I could respond to that I'm just going to, illogically, start here ( Read more... )

I just want to emphasize that I really do believe that last post, while it is genuine, does also illustrate a tremendous amount of naivete and immaturity and an innability to grasp people's reality.