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 [...]

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 filtering and [...]

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 hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.” – Dante I’ve tried many times to write about why I refuse to take what some of my American friends believe is a more “neutral,” or non-objective stance when it comes to Israel and Palestine, but each time [...]

Once in a few years occurs a single, unforgettable night. Sometimes it’s filled with romance, and other times it’s just…a crazy night. I’ve had many of these over the years, but there’s one that I can’t forget… I’d returned from Senegal a day before, my hair in kinky, bright blonde braids, my figure as [...]

Just on the heels of my post yesterday, a plane crash in Texas. I wish I’d been home to turn on the TV, because I’m sure there were some media gaffes. A coworker pointed out this article by Brian Stelter in the NYT demonstrating that networks used the word terrorism “with care” in [...]

At a lunch talk at the Shorenstein Center today, in the midst of a discussion on media influence, someone raised a question they had been asked at an event weeks prior: “Are you more afraid of terrorists or the U.S. government?”  The ensuing discussion centered on the fear mongering of the far-right media (e.g., Glenn [...]

So much of travel writing relies on sensory memory – the aroma of spice and fire in Mumbai, the sound of crickets at dusk in Maine, the feel of still, humid Caribbean air. Thinking back through my years there, it would seem a natural conclusion, then, to write about Morocco through the lens of taste.  The [...]

I was sitting on the bus yesterday morning, reading with headphones in, hood up, lost in my own world, when the woman sitting next to me accidentally elbowed me. She apologized, then in a deep southern drawl, asked, “Whatcha readin’?” I, headphones, still in, flipped the book closed to show her the cover: She [...]

This is a guest post written by my friend Saed Karzoun, and translated from its original Arabic by Amani Omari.  The article in its original Arabic can be found at 7iber.com. On my typical day-to-day life, I hang out with a group of young boys and girls like myself; and I realized their growing temptation for [...]

Something is rotten in the kingdom of Morocco proclaims Issandr El Amrani in a Guardian piece about the closure of Moroccan magazine Le Journal Hebdomadaire. Though El Amrani notes that the Le Journal case is only one indicator, something is rotten, indeed. The magazine’s offices were liquidated after a commercial appeals court declared [...]

In my spare time, I’ve been doing a lot of talking to activists and reporters about two issues that are getting very little coverage in the U.S., despite both being facets of U.S. policy. The first is H.R. 2278, which eatbees has done a better job than I ever could of explaining here. [...]

I’m a bit late to the party with comments on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Net freedom speech last Thursday; I was deep in work that day and spent the weekend doing fun things (like visiting with friends and finally seeing Avatar). Still, though there have been plenty of excellent analyses of the speech [...]

A guest blog post on stuff white people do notes the racist ways in which the death penalty is used in the United States; a compelling argument against it even for those who don’t find it inherently wrong. Yaman Salahi reviews The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, touching on the particularities of how pro-Palestinian organizations in [...]

Yesterday was “Blog for Choice Day 2010″ but as I was on a train sans wi-fi for most of the day, I missed it.  I did, however, read an incredible post by Sara Gwin of Silence is Betrayal: a Feminist Blog.  Gwin presents a history of George Tiller (this year’s theme, in his honor, was [...]

Earlier in the week, I tried checking out the TV for news about Haiti, but each time was confronted with pieces that disproportionately focused on white people, Wyclef Jean, and Israel.  With regard to Israel in particular, the media seems to be focused on Israel’s highly effective field hospital in Port-au-Prince, which even Jewish papers [...]

42 years ago: a revolution on the brink.  1968: the year of protests.  the year that rocked the world.  the year that Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were brutally murdered*. I was born 14 years later, too late to understand the intricacies of the time.  I showed up too late for the revolution.  [...]

I’ll let you in on a little secret: I have a wee bit of an addictive personality.  Fortunately, it doesn’t manifest itself in any particularly nefarious ways (anymore, anyway – I quit smoking in March!), but I’m still a bit of an all-or-nothing gal. That’s why I’ve decided to take a long break from Twitter. Now, before [...]

Haiti is not within my typical geographic area of interest, but it is (and should be) impossible to ignore the catastrophe there: as many as 100,000 people killed by a 7.0 earthquake which occurred on January 12.  As many as 1/3 of Haiti’s 9 million people are in need of aid.  For a country that [...]

Let me tell you a secret: I think Christopher Hitchens is an idiot. Though I admit I’m a latecomer to his columns, from the moment I heard about the SSNP incident, I was utterly convinced. In fact, I’m perhaps glad that I didn’t know much about him at the time, because I fear that [...]

Here’s no secret: Jason Calacanis doesn’t impress me. Sure, the dude can make money (but so could Bernie Madoff), but as far as ideas go? I’m underwhelmed, seriously and truly underwhelmed. So today, when I spotted this delicious rant of Jason’s on TechCrunch, I was quite pleased to be among the first in line [...]

This is what is intended to be the first in a series of translated pieces by my friend Saed Karzoun, a journalist, musician, and blogger from Ramallah. Original piece in Arabic by Saed Karzoun Translated by Raghda Butros As I sit watching television, listening to the radio, reading the papers or browsing the Internet, amidst this massive influx [...]

Re-posted from The Huffington Post: The JIDF, or Jewish Internet Defense Force, started as a collective of activists dedicated to the noble cause of combating antisemitic speech online. The group stood up against sites such as Facebook and Wikipedia in attempts to get them to remove hateful speech, and in mid-2009 achieved success in lobbying [...]

We’re in the midst of an attempt to get the #Gaza hashtag to trend on Twitter (if you don’t know what that means, let me Google that for you), and are learning bit by bit what doesn’t work (and of course, what does).  Twitter is an ever-changing platform, so what mattered one year ago may [...]

By now you might have seen David Sasaki’s retrospective about Global Voices,  or Rebecca MacKinnon’s post about GV, five years in.  Maybe you’re aware that GV is celebrating its fifth anniversary.  Anyway, now you are! I joined Global Voices in April 2007, about two years and 8 months ago.  As I explain in this video post, [...]

Perhaps you’ve wondered about my bit of a blogging hiatus: I spent December 7-13 in Beirut for the second annual Arab Bloggers Workshop. The workshop, sponsored by The Heinrich Böll Foundation and Global Voices Online, with support from HIVOS and the Open Society Institute, brought together about 80 of the most amazing bloggers from [...]

On a night unlike many others, I took a taxi home. I had approached the first cab I saw outside of the bar, but the driver didn’t have a credit card machine and I didn’t have cash. The second cab I approached didn’t want to go to my neighborhood. The third driver [...]

Many people are outraged at the Swiss people’s decision to ban minarets from their skylines, a decision made by referendum. From the outset, let me say that I am wholly opposed to this decision, just as I am opposed to the burqa ban in France, Egypt’s ban on building churches, several Muslim countries’ bans on conversion, and Saudi Arabia’s banning of female hair. I fundamentally believe in the right of anyone to practice their religion, anywhere (though I certainly prefer they keep it to themselves). I should also say that two wrongs don’t make a right: I’ve heard plenty of statements along the lines of “good for the Swiss, they’re standing up to Islam” from people who, were the tables turned, would call inequality if a majority-Muslim nation does the same thing.

I tried to post an article on my Facebook wall; the piece was a brief Boston Globe column about alternatives to the F-word when the F-word feels repetitive or obscene. I commented that readers might also enjoy a different piece (from best of Cragslist, no less) about the “c-word” and told them they could find it on my Google shared items, but did not add a link. In other words, I used no profanity nor did the Globe article. And yet, Facebook would not allow me to post it.

This is just a little something the wonderful Macon D of anti-racism blog stuff white people do allowed me to guest post over there…For those of you who may have missed it. ***** Last week, a few days after the horrific events of Fort Hood, a Marine reservist in Florida mistook a visiting Greek Orthodox priest for [...]

Rarely do I cross-post from elsewhere onto my own blog, however, this warrants widespread discussion.  From the ONI blog: Whilst attending the Internet Governance Forum in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, the OpenNet Initiative (along with partners of ONI Asia) gathered to present their upcoming book, Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace. [...]

It’s difficult to comment on the events of last Thursday without being suspected of terrorism yourself.  After all, this country’s media (and perhaps its tribunals) run on a premise of “innocent until proven Muslim.”  That said, I offer condolences to the victims of the Fort Hood shootings and wish for swift, fair, and strong punishment [...]

In 1991, when Demi Moore posed nude and pregnant on the cover of Vanity Fair, there was significant outrage.  While Moore’s intent was to show the beauty of pregnancy as well as her “anti-glamour” attitude, she also succeeded in angering conservatives across the country and pleasing feminists, who saw it as an act of empowerment.  [...]

I had the extreme privilege of attending a lecture today by Orhan Pamuk, as part of a series of Norton Lectures at Harvard (the rest of which I, sadly, missed).  There is something about being in the presence of such greatness which is truly humbling, and at the same time, inspiring, particularly when aforementioned greatness [...]

Every day on the bus, as I scan through the feeds coming through my RSS reader, I save the best folder for last.  I flip first through folders dubbed “anthroblogging” and “arabists,” ones for my Global Voices readings, and ones for work.  Once I’ve read, or at least marked all as read, I come to [...]

I logged into MySpace tonight for the first time in, apparently, about a year and a half.  My last hesitant update read “Jill doesn’t check MySpace.  E-mail her.”  I haven’t used my nickname publicly in a long time, and most of the people I know have left MySpace.  I wasn’t going to delete it, but [...]

Apologies for the lack of updates lately.  There’s work, then I served on a jury for the better part of a week (yay civic duties!), and now it’s work again. That said, I have had this article open in a tab on my work computer for over two weeks because I couldn’t figure out what to [...]

I’ve got one or ten blog posts in the wings, but it’s been a very busy couple of weeks, so in an effort to clear my Firefox session of its many open tabs, I share with you the things I’m reading and thinking about. Please comment feverishly! The Committee to Protect Journalists has released an [...]

This is (I think) the third time I’ve participated in Blog Action Day. In 2007, the theme was Environment, in 2008 it was Poverty, and this year, it’s Climate Change. The topic creates a nice coincidence for me: for the past month or so, I’ve been working with Global Voices on a mentoring project with [...]

Growing up, you have a certain conception of the way life is, the way the world works.  Images of seasons, events, are pressed into your mind and solidified.  Later, when you’re all grown up (if there is such a thing), you’re disappointed that you can’t revive those feelings.  You catch a whiff of some candle [...]

I’ve seen a lot of big mosques. There’s something different about this one.  There’s a way of photographing it from a specific angle that makes it seem as big as a city (I didn’t do it justice, but this photo does) or as if it lies on the edge of the ocean. There’s this feeling of nostalgia [...]

A few months ago, I was harshly criticized for my criticism of Anne Applebaum’s so-called journalism.  In Round 1, she made all sorts of absurd statements about Morocco. Round 2?  Applebaum calls the arrest of Roman Polanski “outrageous,” states that he doesn’t deserve jail time because he has “paid for the crime in many, many ways: [...]

An addendum to my last post, in case I wasn’t clear: This issue, for me, is not about Morocco or Muslim countries, as some of my readers apparently seem to think.  When I say religion is personal, I mean religion is personal, and if your beliefs don’t affect me, then you can do whatever you like.  [...]

In a post I wrote recently for Global Voices, I covered the efforts of the Mouvement Alternatif pour les Libertés Individuelles, a new Moroccan activist group that recently made headlines for eating in public during Ramadan.  In effect, they broke the law; Article 222 of the Moroccan Penal Code stipulates that a Muslim who [...]

I remember a time when the world felt big.  Where, as an angsty nineteen year old, I told a friend over cigarettes and copious amounts of coffee that the better alternative to suicide was to run away, lose yourself in a part of the world that you’d never even imagined.  I remembered that conversation three [...]

A bit of a diversion from my usual topics, but I got this e-mail from CafePress that cracked me up and I couldn’t help but share.  The popular product creation company is partnering with the new Fame movie brand to allow users to create fan products.  At first this struck me as an excellent online-mass [...]

There are far too many things for me to comment on, and way too few hours in the day. Some links for your reading pleasure: Charlotte has an excellent piece on “authenticity” on Morocco that makes use of a recent Guardian piece on finding the authentic in Casablanca (also worth a read). Naomi Wolf states the [...]

I’m a little peeved at myself for my last post…I don’t regret what I said, but it was more self-centered than I would have liked, and left out the incredible parts of living abroad. With that in mind, I’m going to look today at another article – Judy Bacharach’s “Twice Branded – Western Women [...]

[Since writing this post yesterday, I've had a number of interesting conversations, not to mention received more e-mails and comments than usual.  Although it's perhaps too soon to revise my post in a meaningful way, there are a few things I feel that I should have included: my age and status as a single woman [...]

It’s common knowledge that birth rates tend to be higher in economically less developed places and lower in economically developed ones. For example, the birth rate in Italy is so low that the government offers money for fecundity. On the other hand, Niger, among the poorest countries in the world, is also the country [...]