Category Archives: Culture

Culture, Middle East

African Zebras and Middle East Donkeys, Asses and Power from Damascus to the Gulf……..

   

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“Why zebras evolved their characteristic black-and-white stripes has been the subject of decades of debate among scientists. Now researchers from Hungary and Sweden claim to have solved the mystery. The stripes, they say, came about to keep away blood-sucking flies. They report in the Journal of Experimental Biology that this pattern of narrow stripes makes zebras “unattractive” to the flies. They key to this effect is in how the striped patterns reflect light……………..”

“A team of Washington University Sscientists have reached an explanation for why a Zebra is born with black stripes. They have managed to identify the gene responsible for it. They claim it is the same reason that some panthers have brown and gray spots on their skin……………..”


The Zebra is called “Humar al-Wahsh” in Arabic, meaning Wild Ass or, si vous préférez, Wild Donkey. Humar means ass or donkey, ‘wahsh’ means beast, and ‘wahshi’ means wild or untamed. The Arabic name makes sense, since the usual ass is not wild and free, unlike the zebra which is not domesticated but is wild and free (certainly wilder and freer than the ass). Apparently African cultures, where the zebra has chosen to live, did not require beasts of burden. Otherwise the zebra would have become as domesticated as the asses of the Middle East.
I have written in the past about the donkey and why it is a fascinating animal with a long glorious history in our region. The donkey, the ass, the jackass (in Americanese) has not done so badly either in our region. In many places, the asses not only thrive, they also rule. If you are interested in this fascinating animal, friend, and leader that often affects our lives, then I would recommend some of my posts on this topic:
 
Iraq, Helen Thomas, and Shoes- The Shi’a Question: Wahhabis’ Own Group- Jackasses of Arabia Shall Rise Again

Valentine and Equus Asinus in the Middle East- Damascus The Ancient City of Asses- The Revered Donkeys of Egypt……  (This post is one of my favorite Valentine pieces)

Those Underrated Powerful Asses of the GCC States………

Rumi: Iranian Cleric Mixes Bestiality with Politics……

Political Animal Planet: An Assembly of Jackass Penguins of Patagonia…
This one made me homesick last time I read it)

Obama’s Colombian Donkey Gift, Asses of the Middle East……

Political Donkeys of Kurdistan, Jackasses of the Gulf, Harry Belafonte………

Donkey Milk, Donkey Brain: Middle East Gender Gap…….

When Saudi Asses Opined on Egyptian Happiness, Cyprus Donkeys……

The Dog, the Cow, the Ass, and Arab Leaders……

Cheers
mhg
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Arab Revolutions, Culture, Muslims, US Foreign Policy

Muslim Mobs, Media Savvy Mobs, KFC Mobs, Old Glory Mobs…………

   

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Ref my last posting. There is one thing many in these countries, in our countries, have in common when angry, when really angry at outside powers. Or when they are angry at local powers but can’t express it freely. Or when the economy is stagnant. Or when they are repressed and frustrated, politically and otherwise (especially ‘otherwise repressed and frustrated‘ in the fun-deprived Middle East). Or when they are irritated by some silly foreign cartoon or a video clip. Or sometimes even when they are genuinely angry at Uncle Sam for his policies.
There is one thing that unify all our mobs, from North Africa all the way to the outer islands of Indonesia. They all raise the flag of the United States, including the Salafis and other al-Qaeda supporters. They raise Old Glory, then they trample on it, all for the benefit of Western television cameras, then they burn it, all for the benefit of the Western television cameras. Our “rebels” and “protesters” now always carry signs in English rather than Arabic. Our mobs have become quite camera savvy and media savvy. CNN and Fox and Sky and the rest love it, no doubt at least partly wishing and hoping it would go on.
Oh, we have also developed a taste for fast American food. Sometimes our mobs raid a McDonald’s or KFC restaurant, ransack it, before eating all the French fries and all the crispy chicken (original recipe is the favorite). Then they may burn it.
Cheers
mhg
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Culture, Iran, Media, Qatar

Piers Morgan of CNN and Ahmadinejad: on LBGT in Egypt and Qatar and Jordan…………

   

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Piers Morgan on CNN tried to embarrass Ahmadinejad yesterday by asking him about homosexuals in Iran and their treatment. This is a question reserved by U.S. media only for the Iranian president. Of course the same treatment is common all across the Middle East and Africa and much of Asia (not just Muslims). Yet American media never ask other Muslim or Arab leaders about this crucial issue, saving it for Ahmadinejad. Come to think of it; they never ask other Middle East leaders about the Holocaust either, and I suspect some of them have even more controversial (call it more repulsive) opinions about it than Ahmadinejad. For example Shaikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi of Egypt, supported and sheltered by Qatar for years, publicly opines that Hitler was doing God’ work by extermination millions of Jews (His video clip here).

So
Piers Morgan of CNN was interviewing a joint session of President Morsi of Egypt, King Abdullah of Jordan, and the Emir of Qatar. The Jordanian king is a favorite interviewee of American media (they love his accent which makes him sound credible). He is third only to Netanyahu (apparently Ahmadinejad is the number one favorite because Ayatollah Khamenei refuses to go on CNN).

So
Piers Morgan asks his three guests about LBGT, about homosexuals (nobody cares about lesbians over there) in Egypt and Jordan and Qatar, and why they are persecuted and imprisoned (beheaded in Saudi Arabia). Mr. Morsi is confused: he was expecting a question about Hooters or some nude restaurant in Los Angeles (maybe a Sushi joint). The Jordanian king and Qatari emir respond in unison: I thought this question was reserved every year for Mr. Ahmadinejad?
Cheers
mhg
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Culture, Europe, GCC

Archdukes of Austria, Washington, and ArchPrinces of the Gulf………….

   

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Did u know that they still have Archdukes in Austria? And now they have an Archduchess in DC (no, she is white as in Anglo)? Now if that don’t beat the Arch of St Louis. And I had though the last Austrian Archduke was offed by a Serb in Sarajevo in the summer of 1914.
I don’t recall personally meeting (as in shaking hands with) an Archduke before: just a viscount or two, a few sirs (lots of these around: a dime a dozen), one nearly plebeian queen and her consort once (there could have been an Archduke lurking around), a prince and his sad doomed beautiful bride once. No archdukes that I know of so far, but unlikely to run into any in this neck of the woods.

Maybe we ought to start having Archdukes, or maybe just Arches, in our Gulf. Imagine the elegance of having to pronounce: ArchShaikh Khalifa Bin Kleptocrat of Bahrain, ArchMufti Al Shaikh of Riyadh, ArchMullah ShamsUlSomethingOrOther of Tehran, ArchEmir Shaikh Taiss Bin Haiss (or maybe Haiss Bin Taiss) of the Salafis, ArchShaikh Ras Bin Ghlais Bin Shaiboob of WTF. Has a certain ring to it, nicht war?

It would be fine so long as these Arches don’t start slapping each other on the face with limp white gloves and demand satisfaction with a duel at dawn somewhere. Using slingshots (what we call nabbata) of course.

Cheers
mhg
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Culture, UAE

An American, a Tunisian, an Emirati, and a Dubai Policeman Walk into this Airport Bar………

   

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“Prosecutors said that BS, a 32-year-old American, was returning to the US on August 27 at about 10pm when he tried to check in at a counter operated by the Tunisian AA, 33. However, when the airline employee noticed the American was not travelling with his company he directed him to a different counter, operated by the correct airline. The traveller was then said to have sworn twice at the airline employee, before turning to his Emirati colleague and using another swear word to insult both of them. He then focused his attention on the Emirati, saying: “Idiot, foolish country”, the court was told. “I could smell alcohol on his breath,” said the Emirati employee. The Tunisian then called airport police and the man was arrested. EA, a 30-year-old Emirati policeman, said that the passenger was brought to him following the Tunisian’s complaint. “He suddenly started insulting the UAE and its rulers,” said the policeman, who said he warned the passenger against badmouthing the UAE, but that the man responded by insulting him too………….”

There they go again. In the UAE they love to use acronyms for people. Another story, saga, involving BS (BS?), AA, US, EA, UAE, et al.
That American must
have said something mighty nasty about the potentates. “Badmouthing” and
insulting the UAE, my eye! They wouldn’t charge him just for being
annoying, especially since he was leaving the country. Makes you wonder
what he told which potentate to go do with/to/for themselves.

Cheers
mhg
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Culture, UAE, WTF

Of Desperate Housemaids: a Death in Dubai, WTF………………

   

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“DUBAI // A maid who admitted stabbing a man to death now faces a further charge of having consensual sex. EK, a 28-year-old Ugandan, failed to appear before the Misdemeanour Court today to answer the sex charge, but court records show that she confessed in July to the premeditated murder of her compatriot SK. She told the Criminal Court that she killed the man in self defence on April 7 when he started chasing her around the building they were both living in. “I got scared and picked up a knife and stabbed him but I didn’t see where I stabbed him,” she told judge Hamad Abdul Latif……………The police major AA testified that when the woman appeared at Naif police station she was still screaming: “I killed somebody”. When officers searched her one bedroom apartment they found the knife used in the stabbing under her sofa. During the murder investigation she denied having sex with the man she stabbed. She told investigators that the only man she had sex with was another Ugandan man identified as M and that this happened one month before the killing. She said they had met at a Ugandan restaurant in Jumeirah and had sex twice afterwards. ….……..”

 A saga of EK and SK and AA and M and, finally, WTF. You’d think they are KGB or CIA or Bahraini Intelligence operatives. In Dubai, where interesting things do happen, especially inside Jumeirah restaurants, apparently.
(We can categorize this gem under ‘Culture’, since I don’t have a category for the other ‘thing’, yet).
Cheers
mhg
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Arabian Peninsula, Culture, Saudi Arabia, Science

Saudi Manhattan Project, Tectonic Plates to Hibernate for 100 Years………..

   

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“JEDDAH: An expert ruled out the occurrence of devastating earthquakes in Saudi Arabia over the next 100 years. “Seismic activity underneath Saudi Arabia will remain normal and if any disturbances do occur over the next 100 years, they will not pose any danger as their magnitude will never exceed 4.5 on the Richter Scale,” said Ali Al-Shukri, head of the Astronomical Sciences Department at King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals. The latest tremor registering a magnitude of 4.5 near the Kingdom occurred at an undersea location 181 km off Farasan Island in the Red Sea on Sept. 2.
Satellite images showed that the Arabian tectonic plate and the African plate were moving away from each other, stretching the Earth’s crust and widening the southern end of the Red Sea……………”

Odd, but it almost never quakes in the Arabian Peninsula. It falls just outside the “Seismic Hazard Zone”, although the tip of the UAE is the only exposed part of as an extension of the active Iranian zone (speaking geological, not political). Surrounding regions, like Iran and Turkey get hit frequently and hard, but the Peninsula (and East Africa) is not affected.
This I couldn’t resist: I suspect they are setting the ground for skyscrapers in Mecca and Madinah. And maybe in Jeddah, of course. Manhattan in Hijaz is a possibility, and the potentates are probably salivating at how many pious pilgrims they can squeeze in every year. They have already razed all the historic monuments of Mecca, like the homes of the Prophet and the Sahaba they claim to love and venerate, and replaced them with lucrative hotels, five-six-seven star hotels and shopping malls.
Cheers
mhg
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Culture, Religion, Yemen

Crazy Holy Hair from Hijaz to India: Buffalo Bill and the Wichita Lineman……

   

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“I am a lineman for the county and I drive the main road

Searchin’ in the sun for another overload

I hear you singin’ in the wire, I can hear you through the whine
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line……”  Wichita Lineman (James Taylor)


The Yemeni Deputy Minister of Culture for Manuscripts and Books has announced that a hair of the Prophet Mohammed has been found at a religious school in Zubaida. The vice minister said that the hair had been described in a historical document found early this month (July) which had mentioned a hair of the Prophet in Yemen more than one hundred years ago………..

This business of the hair of the Prophet is no doubt a hoax and the hair is a fake. Otherwise how the hell would a hair, one hair, of the Prophet reach Yemen, hundreds of miles away from where he hung around in Hijaz? I recall some violent riots in Pakistan years ago about another hair of the Prophet Mohammed that was supposedly stolen…. “In December 1963 a sacred relic, allegedly a hair of the Prophet Mohammed, who was the founder of Islam, was reported stolen from the Hazratbal Shrine in Srinagar. This alleged theft resulted in numerous demonstrations and riots by Muslims in Kashmir, Pakistan, and India…..”
This last one is even more ridiculous, since there is no way the Prophet could have ever gotten to India. They can always do a DNA test, but that requires access to the tomb of the Prophet in Madinah, a highly unlikely thing.
Back to the USA: I hear that some Republicans have found a hair of Ronald Reagan in American Samoa, inside some Methodist church. My unreliable source also just informed me that they may also have found a hair of Calamity Jane (Canary) in Wichita, Kansas. There is a dispute over that one: someone claimed it was in fact a hair of Buffalo Bill Cody.
Cheers
mhg
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Culture, Europe, Racism

Europe: “a toxic blend of traditional fascism and Western bigotry posing as secular liberalism”……….

   

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“How’s this for the fashion police? In late May, in a suburb of Brussels, a Muslim woman was arrested for wearing a niqab—the garment worn by a tiny proportion of Muslim women that covers all of the face but the eyes. In the subsequent melee, the woman broke an officer’s nose while being frisked. Her arrest sparked clashes between Muslim youth and police in the area. A week later, the hard-right Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang offered a 250 euro bounty to anyone reporting veiled women to the police. The Belgian law banning the niqab, like measures across Europe ranging from outlawing the wearing of certain face veils in France to the building of more minarets in Switzerland, was ostensibly aimed at integrating Muslim minorities into Western culture. To the extent these laws have integrated Muslims into their place in the new hierarchy of European racism—a toxic blend of traditional fascism and Western bigotry posing as secular liberalism—they’ve been successful. But as a tool for promoting inclusion and equality, these laws have singularly failed. Indeed, this bid to prevent the importation of “radical Islam” has been both laughable and lamentable. The Belgian woman in question was a locally born convert, as were the girls at the heart of the French head scarf law, whose father is Jewish…………”

I do not believe that women should wear a the niqab or burq’a, especially if they don’t want to. I don’t believe that, say, Sarkozy, should wear a fedora or a dunce’s hat, if he doesn’t want to. Yet I believe they both have the right to wear what they want. The same Europeans who were for the ban would raise hell if their government banned them from wearing some item of their own national attire.
Some Arab and Muslim women who never wear the niqab or burq’a hurriedly supported this new European ban on public Islamic dress as ‘liberating’ the women. Maybe it is in some cases where they are forced to. Yet for some this may not be the case: then how can imposing restrictions on anyone ‘liberate’ them? What next? Banning speaking Arabic publicly as a “liberating” measure? Banning halal meet as a ‘liberating’ measure?
Cheers
mhg
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Arab Revolutions, Culture, Syria

Misogyny Emails: from Bashar al-Assad to the Mufti Al………..

   

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“Hundreds of emails purportedly written by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad show he sent several sexist or irreverant messages in the months before the ongoing Syrian uprising began. The French website owni.fr on Thursday published extracts from the latest cache of Syrian documents made avaiable by WikiLeaks, which on July 5 started releasing some 2.5 million emails it said were from Syrian political figures. Of those emails, 538 were supposedly written by Assad himself, sent from the address [email protected] and mostly written before the uprising that has lasted 16 months and so far killed 17,000 people. The emails shed little new information on the deadly crackdown but give a glimpse into Assad’s puerile and slightly misogynistic mindset.
“Wife: I wish I was a newspaper, so I’d be in your hands all day,” begins one of the jokes in an email dated December 23, 2010.
“Husband: I too wish that you were a newspaper, so I could have a new one everyday.”……..”

Frankly I did not read anything misogynic in this piece. There must be more of Assad’s emails to warrant that. BTW: speaking of misogyny, when will they publish the emails of the Saudi king and princes. Oh, and don’t forget the Mufti Al who supports taking child brides so long as the girl can “bear a man’s weight”. It would be fun to read their multiple emails to multiple wives, or maybe just one email and then copies forwarded to the rest. Speaking of misogyny and sexism: these potentates put the ‘sex’ in sexism.
Cheers
mhg
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