Archive for January 4, 2007
This brought back Angry Arab memories. This is an interview with Lebanese poet, Qaysar `Afif. `Afif was my philosophy teacher in high school (yes, we have to take Arab/Islamic philosophy in high school) at IC in Beirut. Once during a class, he said something unflattering about Karl Marx. And I was a dogmatic Marxist-Leninist back [...]
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
Apparently, some officers in the “new” Iraqi army paid their tributes to Saddam.
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
The heroic occupation army of Israel today attacked vegetable stands. The vegetables were accused of terrorist links. US Congress acted immediately: all the offending vegetables were put on terrorist-watch lists.
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
I swear to you that US media invent a new language just to legitimize and rationalize Israeli mass violence against the Palestinians. Look at this headline in the Washington Post: “Israeli Arrest Raid in West Bank Kills 4 Palestinians.” Arrest raid? What is that? Was the raid on Dunkirk also “an arrest raid”? Where do [...]
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
“The New York Daily News today reports on a signing statement President Bush quietly issued two weeks ago, in which he asserts his right to open mail without a warrant. Signing statements have historically been used by presidents mostly to explain how they intend to enforce the laws passed by Congress; Bush has used them [...]
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
“Meanwhile in Palestine”
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
This just in. The saga of the first Muslim congressperson continues. He today pledged that if reelected he will take his next oath on a revised version of the Qur’an: he will permit representatives of the Christian Right to delete whatever they find objectionable, and then he will print a new copy just for the [...]
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
This is Oslo: “Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh entered the Gaza Strip on Thursday after undergoing unprecedented security measures to ensure that he is not bringing in money or weapons. Haniyeh was returning from a pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest city Mecca. The measures were planned by representatives of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, the United States [...]
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
This is the Fath Movement. “During a short hiatus in the fighting earlier in the week, Haaretz interviewed a member of Fatah and asked him to explain the calm. “The Israelis have no need to worry,” he said sadly, “We are just at the start of the war.”“
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
“Even Kuczynski knows women are deluded if they believe getting breast implants is expressing sexual freedom. Because it’s not freedom so much as it is a slavish obedience to the womanly caricatures found in celebrity gossip magazines and ever-proliferating pornography. “We want to be wanted — by our husbands, by our lovers,” Kuczynski writes, as [...]
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
It has been more than three years already, but the Iraq war is now officially over. No, I really mean that. The Iraq was has ended. You think that I am being sarcastic, but I really am not. When I read this, I knew that the end has come. Ticker tape parade will soon follow: [...]
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
“Incoming Archbishop of Warsaw ‘spied for communist secret police’” That only proves Robespierre’s dictum: that “clerics are to virtue what charlatons are to medicine.”
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
“Historians tend to ignore Pompadour and instead celebrate Don Juan, Casanova, and Cleopatra as the apotheosis of the sexual personae. What they fail to consider, however, is that these latter three, when seducing others, demeaned themselves and their gender considerably.”
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
Not only is he the first Muslim congressperson but he also is the first one to take an oath on a pile of books. Why not add the multiple volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica and Kitab Al-Aghani while you are at it, dude? And how could he carry a book by Thomas Jefferson who (in his [...]
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
Well, well, well. Sen. John Kerry not only botches “jokes” but he also botches articles and ideas. Apparently, Ahmad Fatfat made a deep impression on the senator during his visit to Lebanon this winter: “Anyone who has longed for a George Washington or Thomas Jefferson to emerge and lead the fight for democracy in the [...]
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
“When asked about the Iraqi guard suspected of filming and releasing the contentious images, Faroon said, “Maybe a guard also filmed it secretly, but I did not see that.” He said he was misquoted by The New York Times, which reported Faroon identified al-Rubaie as one of the two Iraqi officials he witnessed filming the [...]
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
An obituary of Nahida Fadli Ad-Dajani (for you Lama)
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
Flash. Ahmad Fatfat (of the Fatfatism fame) promises that he will continue to support Ping Pong sports in Lebanon.
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
Husam `Itani: an excellent response to Jumblat’s recent fulminations.
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad
My post on Saddam’s execution translated into French: “Pas de larmes pour Saddam.”
Posted on January 4, 2007 by As'ad