Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Never mind. I'm not connected with the article at all. It was of questionable quality, a complete re-write, but word from higher up came through saying let it be, so I just removed such factual errors as "Bush's invasion of Somalia" and praise of Kerry for winning the southern states, usually Republican strongholds.
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
You heard it here first. This Thursday, Al-Ahram Weekly will hartify John Kerry's presidential hopes with an incriminating photograph of an Egyptian bellydancer, who may or may not be Jane Fonda, on his senatorial lap in January 2002. Or she's in the same picture at least.
Thursday, February 19, 2004
I've been keeping busy lately with studying for the CASA entrance exams (a year of Arabic in Cairo for free if I get in) and reading entertainingly bad Egyptian Gazette articles. One, which I will have to hunt down to quote in full, was a dramatic front page article, with big, bold headlines next to the Iraq, Palestine, and Egyptian corruption stories. Not at all done for the sake of humor, the entire factual basis of the story was that some college student was annoyed that some classmate had taken her picture with his mobile phone during class and then showed her later. VIOLATED GIRL THREATENS LEGAL ACTION and from there it went to pure speculation, with another anonymous student saying something about how digital technology could be used to superimpose someone's face on a nude body from the Internet, and WOMEN ON BEACH VULNERABLE since there is seemingly no way to prevent voyeurs at the beach from covertly using their mobile phones to photograph women except for thorough searches of all men at beaches. And then, even more irrelevantly, WIFE SAYS HUSBAND USING MOBILE PHONE TO TRACK HER which goes on for a couple paragraphs about a woman complaining that her husband gave her a cell phone but is now calling her three or four times a day to make sure she's not with friends he doesn't like. And Egyptian Gazette was first to break this story.
Yesterday I went to a play at the really nice Cairo Opera Complex on Gezira. The play, al-la'ib fil dimagh, "Brainwash" was about the American occupation in Iraq. It starts off the stage, in the cafeteria and waiting area, when several "US soldiers" burst in, waving guns and yelling in English and bad Arabic "Shut up!", "Move it!", and "Turn off your mobile phones!" [carrying signs in Arabic saying the same thing]. The two Iraqi Resistance characters, a man and woman dressed in beat-up janitor's uniforms or jumpsuits or something, heroically Resist, and are then beat up by the soldiers, who fire blanks into the air and yell "Shut the fu** up". The main character is General Tommy Franks, who does a lot of rapping in Arabic to American rap tunes, and a not very convincing George W Bush makes a brief appearance. All in all, it was pretty incoherent, making fun of the Americans nonstop, the Egyptians, call-in music video shows, the Libyans, all while prominently featuring a midget who later thwarts an attempt to assassinate Tommy Franks by the Heroic Resistance. The review I read after another performance in the Lebanese Daily Star said the audience burst into applause at the attempt to kill Tommy Franks, but they didn't at the showing I was it. It had a lot of funny parts, most of which I didn't understand, but didn't really make any sort of point.
copy-and-pasted from somewhere:
US journalist on Cairo Times expelled from country
US journalist Charles Levison, who was working for the weekly Cairo Times, was expelled from Egypt when he returned from vacation in the United States.
Reporters Without Borders called on the Egyptian authorities to reverse the decision and allow the journalist to return to Cairo where he had worked for more than a year.
Levinson was given no explanation for his 29 January expulsion but the newspaper's publisher, Hicham Kassem said he was told by the head of the state intelligence services that Levinson was considered to pose a threat to state security.
"His explanation about the expulsion of Charles Levision is unacceptable," he told the international press freedom organisation.
Levison had been held for four hours by security forces at Cairo airport in December 2003 when he returned from Istanbul after covering the bombing of the British Consulate and the British HSBC Bank for the San Francisco Chronicle.
While in Turkey he wrote two articles for US dailies based on an Amnesty International report that exposed the use of torture in Egyptian prisons and reported on the deaths in custody of militants of the Muslim Brotherhood. These articles appear to have been behind the security forces' hostility towards him that led to his expulsion.
Yesterday I went to a play at the really nice Cairo Opera Complex on Gezira. The play, al-la'ib fil dimagh, "Brainwash" was about the American occupation in Iraq. It starts off the stage, in the cafeteria and waiting area, when several "US soldiers" burst in, waving guns and yelling in English and bad Arabic "Shut up!", "Move it!", and "Turn off your mobile phones!" [carrying signs in Arabic saying the same thing]. The two Iraqi Resistance characters, a man and woman dressed in beat-up janitor's uniforms or jumpsuits or something, heroically Resist, and are then beat up by the soldiers, who fire blanks into the air and yell "Shut the fu** up". The main character is General Tommy Franks, who does a lot of rapping in Arabic to American rap tunes, and a not very convincing George W Bush makes a brief appearance. All in all, it was pretty incoherent, making fun of the Americans nonstop, the Egyptians, call-in music video shows, the Libyans, all while prominently featuring a midget who later thwarts an attempt to assassinate Tommy Franks by the Heroic Resistance. The review I read after another performance in the Lebanese Daily Star said the audience burst into applause at the attempt to kill Tommy Franks, but they didn't at the showing I was it. It had a lot of funny parts, most of which I didn't understand, but didn't really make any sort of point.
copy-and-pasted from somewhere:
US journalist on Cairo Times expelled from country
US journalist Charles Levison, who was working for the weekly Cairo Times, was expelled from Egypt when he returned from vacation in the United States.
Reporters Without Borders called on the Egyptian authorities to reverse the decision and allow the journalist to return to Cairo where he had worked for more than a year.
Levinson was given no explanation for his 29 January expulsion but the newspaper's publisher, Hicham Kassem said he was told by the head of the state intelligence services that Levinson was considered to pose a threat to state security.
"His explanation about the expulsion of Charles Levision is unacceptable," he told the international press freedom organisation.
Levison had been held for four hours by security forces at Cairo airport in December 2003 when he returned from Istanbul after covering the bombing of the British Consulate and the British HSBC Bank for the San Francisco Chronicle.
While in Turkey he wrote two articles for US dailies based on an Amnesty International report that exposed the use of torture in Egyptian prisons and reported on the deaths in custody of militants of the Muslim Brotherhood. These articles appear to have been behind the security forces' hostility towards him that led to his expulsion.
Monday, February 09, 2004
I guess not even Norwegians are safe.
Police said Hussein Ahmed Hassan attacked a group of tourists in the city's historical centre because he mistook them for Americans.
Police said Hussein Ahmed Hassan attacked a group of tourists in the city's historical centre because he mistook them for Americans.
