M.I.A.

I have been busy this week moving back to the city and getting settled in, but I am not only missing in action in the blogosphere. I am also M.I.A. at tonight’s Outside Land’s Festival at Golden Gate Park where Radiohead play from 8 to 10pm. In the words of Beck (and he will also be playing at the concert tonight), “Soy un perdedor…I’m a loser babyyyy….so why don’t you…” ugh why don’t you not remind me that I am missing out on the greatest band to walk the Earth. And I’m talking objectively here. I am totally regretting not buying a ticket.  Damn. 

Churchpaigning

Am I the only person out there who thinks that Presidential candidates should not campaign in churches? Is it not enough that we had to tolerate CNN’s inane faith forums (or whatever they were called)?  What issues could religious people possibly discuss that could not be shared in a non-religious setting or theme?  Rick Warren, the pastor of Saddleback Church, mentioned he would ask “personal questions” at today’s forum.  Should I start puking now?  So the economy sucks, wars are breaking out, and gasoline prices make some of us want to cry, but Rick Warren wants to ask the candidates “personal questions”? So not only is this church event a dismissal of the principle of separation of Church and State, it will also probably be a complete waste of your time.

I understand why the candidates would participate in this event. After all, evangelical Christians are a voting bloc.  If only they were voting for who Jesus’s best sidekick would be. Nevertheless, I am fully aware that many Americans are religious (and don’t read the Constitution). But I don’t recall what happened the last time voters elected a church man. Oh that’s right—he went on to become one of the worst presidents in American history.  Keep your religions at home, people!

10 Things I Don’t: Like, Care For, or Want To Hear About…Lately

(1.) The Olympics.
(2.) A girl named Caylee.
(3.) John Edwards or anything having to do with him.
(4.) Cindy McCain.
(5.) Campaign Ads. There has got to be a better use for that obscene amount of money.
(6.) Middle East “experts” on TV—where do they find these idiots?
(7.) The media, pundits, and most journalists who are not doing their job.
(8.) Feminists who: (a.) contemplate voting for a man who would appoint social conservatives on the SC and who also called his wife a “cunt” (and he was not reclaiming it), (b.) refuse to see any other woman become VP besides Hillary Clinton, (c.) think they have a monopoly over the term “feminist,” (d.) write op-eds in the NYT, (e.) fail to see injustices that either fall outside of or intersect with gender disparities, (f.) are racist, orientalist, and sometimes even imperialist (stop invading countries to “liberate women” please—you only make it worse, you hypocrite!).
(9.) Christiane Amanpour and her “God’s Warriors” documentary. This documentary would have been interesting if it explored some social history of religious movements. But of course, Amanpour assumes religions just fall out of the sky—perhaps by some bearded God or even Morgan Freeman. The documentary does confirm one thing—that religious people need someone like Christiane Amanpour to show them just how insane many of them sound.
(10.) The fact that The Dark Knight is not out on DVD yet. I want to watch it again, and again.

This list is subject to change. Except for numbers 6, 7, and 8 which have an enduring quality of pissing the shit out of me.

Never Gonna Give You Up

Obama’s feelings could not be summed up in a speech, so someone compiled them from several speeches. The result? Obama is never gonna give you up, and never gonna let you down.

The Silver Lining

David Cross on the War in Iraq:

Stewie on Brian’s Novel

Let’s see how long this Family Guy clip stays one YouTube—they get taken down quickly. It’s hilarious! Oh how I miss the days when you could watch anything on YouTube.  

Mahmoud Darwish Dies

Today is a sad day.  Mahmoud Darwish has died at the age of 67 after complications following a heart surgery he underwent on Wednesday.  If you do not know who Mahmoud Darwish is, he is only the most profound Palestinian poetic voice to emerge from the Occupation.  Born in the village of al-Birweh in Galilee, Darwish became a refugee at the age of 7 after his village was demolished by Israel.  Indeed, his words were more powerful than any rock, bomb, or rocket launched.  He was once quoted saying, “I thought poetry could change everything, could change history and could humanize …  but now I think that poetry changes only the poet.” However, Darwish’s poetry has changed everything. It embodied the Palestinian identity at a time when its existence was denied, and communicated the Palestinian struggle when the Palestinian voice was silenced.  At a time when Golda Meir was quoted saying, “There is no Palestinian people,” Darwish’s work had served as one of the greatest weapons against Israeli occupation insofar as it reclaimed the negated Palestinian self and conveyed the national identity and struggle. I know this all sounds like an exaggeration, but look at Arab and Palestinian leadership—neither can be attributed with the influence that Darwish has had on the Palestinian people.  

Last time I was in contact with my Arabic professor at Berkeley (which was over a year ago), he was in Galilee and Ramallah conducting research to write a book on Mahmoud Darwish.  In his class, we translated one of Darwish’s notable poems titled “Identity Card” or Betaqat Haweyyah.  I leave you with the English translation, but if you want to read the Arabic original (and it is better in Arabic) and/or more poems in Arabic and English visit Darwish’s official website.   

Identity Card by Mahmoud Darwish

Record !
I am an Arab
And my identity card is number fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the nineth is coming after a summer
Will you be angry?

Record !
I am an Arab
Employed with fellow workers at a quarry
I have eight children
I get them bread
Garments and books
from the rocks…
I do not supplicate charity at your doors
Nor do I belittle myself
at the footsteps of your chamber
So will you be angry?

Record !
I am an Arab
I have a name without a title
Patient in a country
Where people are enraged
My roots
Were entrenched before the birth of time
And before the opening of the eras
Before the pines, and the olive trees
And before the grass grew.

My father..
descends from the family of the plow
Not from a privileged class
And my grandfather..was a farmer
Neither well-bred, nor well-born!
Teaches me the pride of the sun
Before teaching me how to read
And my house
is like a watchman’s hut
Made of branches and cane
Are you satisfied with my status?
I have a name without a title !

Record !
I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards
of my ancestors
And the land
which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left nothing for us
Except for these rocks..
So will the State take them
As it has been said?!

Therefore !
Record on the top of the first page:
I do not hate people
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper’s flesh will be my food
Beware..
Beware..
Of my hunger
And my anger !

Judging A Book By Its Cover

I have not read this book by journalist Robert Scheer yet, but I like its title.  And from the Amazon.com Editorial Review, I would probably like its content.  It seems intuitive.  Here’s the Review:

From Publishers Weekly
Veteran journalist Scheer (With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush, and Nuclear War) takes aim at America’s defense policy and bloated military budget in this pugnacious and rigorously researched polemic. Tragedy can be opportunity, Scheer writes, and 9/11 provided the defense industry with the opportunity it had long been seeking. Unable to persuade the first Bush and Clinton administrations to invest in expensive, state-of-the-art weapons, the defense industry found fresh life as the current President Bush launched his war on terror and military expenditures swelled to the highest level in history. Scheer argues that war cannot defeat terrorism. What’s required is simple police work—dogged, boring and not terribly expensive—not trillion-dollar bombers, submarines and nuclear arsenal—expenditures he contends are unrelated to defeating terrorists and of little use in Iraq. He soberly reminds readers that Americans have never objected to wasteful defense budgets, and antiwar elected officials fight as viciously as neoconservatives to bring money to their district’s defense industries. Scheer’s prose is as clear as his evidence; readers will be galvanized by his incendiary account. (June 9) 
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 

The Downward Spiral

Since McCain brought Britney Spears into this election, I suppose this video made by Barely Political is fair game? Still, Britney never signed up to do politics, so we should probably leave her out of it.  But if there is anything in common between John McCain and Britney Spears, it is that they are both on a rocky path of a downward spiral (not to be confused with the Nine Inch Nails album—also titled “Downward Spiral”).

Media Horror

 

This will probably be one of many posts expressing my disdain for the mainstream/tabloid/corporate media.  It is a dangerous institution, and I hope it implodes on itself into the irrelevant, hollow, superficial, and asinine bits that it is. There are far too few real sources of news out there—most of which are not owned by some fat-cat CEO who quacks lies in his sleep.  The fallen are too many.  Take this article from the Wall Street Journal, for example, published one week after this horrid Op-Ed. WSJ’s new motto ought to be “Wall Street Journal:  Tarnishing Journalism One Excruciatingly Dumb Article at a Time.” Someone should start a “Save Journalism” campaign; for the sake of human brain cells that are perishing.

Social Networking Threatens to Topple Regime?

Picture taken moments before the arrest of 6 April Youth Movement members. Source: Facebook group

Facebook, blogs, and political participation in general are apparently huge threats to the Egyptian government. Fourteen young Egyptians have been arrested for allegedly “assembling, hampering with traffic, and attempting to topple the regime” in Sidi Bishr beach in Alexandria on the anniversary of the 1952 Revolution that overthrew the monarchy—a national holiday in Egypt. The detainees are part of a Facebook group called “6 April Youth Movement” named after the April 6 General Strike for the People of Egypt—which garners over 72,000 members. Although the group is not affiliated with any political parties, on July 23, the day of their arrest, thirty members showed solidarity with Ayman Nour by visiting the headquarters of his party. Nour is the former leader of el-Ghad Party who has been wrongfully detained by the Mubarak regime since January 2005 for daring to run against him in the last (s)election. The regime conveniently charged Nour with “forging power of attorneys” to create the nascent political party—a claim he continues to deny. According to al-Ahram Weekly:

Police officers forced [the 6 April Youth] off the beach and onto the streets of Al-Raml where they continued singing and waving flags, one of which was attached to a kite. “A truck packed with Central Security personnel arrived and arrested 14 of the 30 demonstrators while the rest managed to flee,” Gamal Eid, executive director of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, who met the arrested group while in custody, told Al-Ahram Weekly.[...]The arrested denied any links with political parties or the Muslim Brotherhood. “They told investigators that they did not advocate destructive ideas, let alone toppling the regime. They said they would not even incite people to stage a civil disobedience,” says Eid. [...]Bloggers, and Facebook activists in particular, have become a thorn in the Egyptian authorities’ side, especially after attempts to organise a nationwide strike on 6 April in support of textile workers in Al-Mahala Al-Kobra. “The government believes that the number of cyberspace activists, most of whom are not affiliated with political parties, is growing steadily. What really worries them is that these young activists are ordinary people who have the potential to organise a demonstration or a strike,” says Eid. Blogger and activist Mina Zekri agrees. “The authorities have clamped down on the 6 April activists because they are terrified of the idea that ordinary people, without any political party affiliation, are developing the potential to instigate political action. Even the phrase ‘6 April youth’ is enough to ruffle the feathers of the government. The security apparatus clearly believes that this kind of opposition has the ability to incite people to demonstrate. That’s why they hit them hard in Alexandria, where they were just flying a kite with an Egyptian flag attached to it.” [Read the full article here]

Translation: Free the 6 April Youth Detainees. Source: Facebook.

It seems like the easier it has become to organize and communicate, the more tyrannical regimes have become. Thus, joining a Facebook group or creating a candid blog is now equivalent to wearing a “shoot-me” sign. Initially, the dictatorship’s actions appear petty and overly paranoid. After all, if one were to plan out the toppling of a regime, s/he would not exactly “create an event” on Facebook, or blog about it. However, these online outlets are more than just organizing tools. While dictatorships work to break people down into despair and apathy, perhaps a blog or a Facebook group is the only place where dissidents do not feel alone—especially when 72,000 others show solidarity. In addition to the “usual suspects” (his typical dissidents) and the deteriorating economic conditions, Mubarak should fear a rise of political consciousness among the youth in Egypt. Then again, I am sure paranoia is a dictator’s middle name.