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Discovering New Places

Authenticity keeps coming up in conversations. First it was the white people and dreadlocks conversation, followed by one about manufactured authenticity via cappuccino. In that same post, David says, “I find that for most tourists nothing is more important than seeking out the “authentic” of where they are.” I’ve been thinking a lot lately about [...]

30.03.2010

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Why the UK Home Office’s “Pro-Islamic” Blog Study is Wrong

Update: Al Jazeera published a modified version of this post, complete with interviews with As’ad Abukhalil, Rime Allaf, and Edip Yuksel. CONTEST is the United Kingdom’s counter-terrorism strategy, with a stated aim to “reduce the risk to the UK and its interests from international terrorism.” The UK’s Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) is set [...]

26.03.2010

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Let Me Google That For You

In the past week, I’ve encountered far too much lazy journalism when it comes to Internet filtering; young journos calling to ask for the basics of filtering (and I’m far too polite to send them here), mostly, and now, crap like this. In the first few paragraphs, the author of the article states quite clearly [...]

24.03.2010

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The BOBs!

I’ve been paying attention to the BOBs (Best of Blog Awards) since 2007, when I wrote this Global Voices post summing up the winners. Considered the most prestigious of the blogosphere’s many awards, the BOBs are sponsored by Deutsche Welle, and past winners include worthy projects Alive in Baghdad, Generacion Y, and of course, Global [...]

22.03.2010

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March 18

I wrote this on March 21 of last year: Omidreza was you. He was me. He was each one of us who dares speak our minds. He simply was born in the wrong country, at the wrong time, and chose the wrong day to write about something he believed in. The world has lost one [...]

18.03.2010

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The Risk of Facebook Activism in the New Arab Public Sphere

Over at The Arabist, Issandr El Amrani ruminates on Facebook’s role in Middle Eastern politics, a subject I’ve had my eye on for quite some time.  Drawing on the recent example of Egyptian reformer El Baradei and his enormous Facebook following, El Amrani marvels at the level of Facebook use for activism in the region. [...]

13.03.2010

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On Frontiers

A million years ago, in a life I no longer recognize as mine, I knew a boy who was obsessed with frontiers. We would talk, sprawled out on the floor, about dreams and futures. Like me, he was terrified of commitment and we clung to a shared ideal of smashing walls and chasing the sunset. [...]

09.03.2010

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Filtering Sex in the Arab World

From the OpenNet Initiative blog (which I edit and curate): Google’s recent decision to stop filtering keywords on its Chinese platform, Google.cn, sparked discussion in the media about the role of corporations in controlling access to online material in repressive nations. Microsoft recently added a new layer of complexity to the ongoing debate regarding the [...]

05.03.2010

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“Check it Right, You Ain’t White”

An awful slogan for an extremely interesting campaign. The “Yalla! Count” campaign, whose slogan is the above, aims to encourage Arabs to write in “Arab” as their race on the upcoming 2010 census instead of checking the “White” box. The campaign picked up traction this week when Newsweek published a feature article referencing the campaign [...]

05.03.2010

8 Comments