“From open-access journals to research-review blogs, networked knowledge has made science more accessible to more people around the globe than we could have imagined 20 years ago.” /via @endlesscities
May 24, 2010
Science 2.0 Pioneers > SEED
May 21, 2010
October 27, 2009
"I’ve never done this talk-to-others-on-tumblr thing, but this feels more important than my blogging manner: igather, I’m male & I support your statement. It’s sad, but it’s valid (dare I call it true?). You have every right to think & feel that way. And -of course- it sucks ‘a wee’ more; any male who takes offense needs to check his priorities, f’real. Have a good day."
September 5, 2009
StrugglesWithPhilosophy > Tagged > DeLanda
A good resource from an aptly-named blog given my current interest in (& StruggleWith) DeLanda. It’s comforting to read the thoughts & ‘encounters’ (as the big D, ever-tenacious, would call them) of someone with eyes as fresh as mine.
“Only because I’m green. Only because I’m greener than green”
June 8, 2009
favorite reactions in no particular order #lebanonelections
@mikewhills: Just a thought guys, but Hezbollah never really wanted to win anyway did they? #lebanonelections
[see: ‘So was it right?]’
Angry Arab: “I never underestimate how dumb the Lebanese opposition is. They lost and they deserved to lose. The speech by Hasan Nasrallah about May 7th was enough, to be topped a few days ago by a lousy speech by Na`im Qasim (a lousy speaker to boot) in which he pledged to continue importing arms into Lebanon. I am sure that he won the undecided votes with that pledge. Boo hoo Sanyurah won big in Sidon: and I was not suprised there. His rival, Usamah Sa`d ran a most lousy campaign there, and I told him that twice on the phone during the campaign—the last time only two weeks ago”
@markdaher: EVERYONE PUT ON OTV! There’s videoclips! No more election news, hahaha! #lebanonelections
“March 14 effectively lied and fabricated in their campaigns but that is legitimate in elections. The other side did not know how to handle that. For example, according to Ta’if, the Lebanese agreed that the seats in parliament would be split between Christians and Muslims. Suddenly in the campaign, March 14 claimed (or fabricated) that the other side will give Muslims 2/3 of all seats in parliament. No one in the opposition ever said that and the other side spent time and money to deny that they ever said that, but that gave the terms of the debate to March 14. March 14 always throw off the other side.”
@donatelladr: Sweden forever!at least someone will be sending nice guys in the EU Parliament!ia3ish Pirate Party
@mikewhills I have to say I kinda agree… RT @lammoush: Tweeple on here seem v. pro-M14. Would’ve liked to see more of the other side #lebanonelections
Michel Elefteriades PLUTOCRACY
June 3, 2009
June 2, 2009
Fischerspooner - Cloud
I remember the first time I saw a tag cloud on del.icio.us a number of years ago. I couldn’t understand how anyone was expected to find what they wanted with that system. You could say that I had been a digital native for most of my life, having owned and destroyed my share of PCs as a child, and making my first website when I was twelve (Geocities, RIP)… but of course, my first experiences with the web were very much 1.0. I remember when ‘push’ technology was becoming a buzzword and the digirati were hailing RSS as a historic rupture — we’ve come a long long way, baby — and so, my mind had been structured around trees of folders and subfolder etc. I would find a kind of comfort in organizing my mp3s (my very first downloads were actually MIDIs; remember those? and yes, I remember when mp3s started becoming all the rage, and I do believe my first few included Born To Be Wild by Steppenwolf and something off of Everlast’s Whitey album) and other artifacts in different whimsically-named structures, so you can understand my initial disapproval at having all that muddied up by this ‘tagging’ “system” that didn’t feel like a system at all. But I got over that bias quickly and now relish in the beautiful disorder.
I think my shift from blogging to tumbling is a similar development; no more taking comfort in linearity and false narratology… nothing but a humming cloud of tumbleweed and dust and the occasional flash of tooth on bone.
Truth and bone. “I am just a cloud”
June 2, 2009
Loose Use or Linguistic Ludditery?
Just a thought: if language is a living thing, as I believe, and if we should make way for progress, as I’m often inclined to feel, does people’s constant misspelling of “lose” as “loose” mean we’ll be stuck with that spelling in a few decades? I seriously hope not….
Just remember… not every progression is a “step forward”. Muqawawa 7atta nnasr ;)
June 2, 2009
blogging is
I don’t read many blogs (I only read a few dealing with the Middle East) and I don’t know much about blogs or blogging as a profession or as a hobby although I personally blog. Why do I not read other blogs? It is not like writing: you write and then you read what other people write and on so on. Blogging is a difference exercise: it is more personal and more narcissistic: much more narcissistic for sure. It is more personal unless you use the blog for reasons related to career promotion. I followed Drezner’s blog for a few days and it made me wonder: am I that narcissistic and that self-referential? I may very well but and blogging is a personal encounter, first and foremost. That is an inevitable consequence of blogging. In fact, I resisted the blog for that same reason […] The question is: why does one blog, and for whom does one blog? ■
June 1, 2009
i am jad. i write manifestos. i don’t finish what i start but i have potential. i have abandoned two blogs since xmas. this is maximalism.
May 29, 2009
May 29, 2009
May 29, 2009
"sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here."
— WordPress.com 404 error page
May 11, 2009
the lull of words
“I brought my two daughters out here earlier,” said 50-year-old Abu Ali, gesturing towards the corner of the building from where his fighters were preparing to jump out and fire. ‘I brought them out so they could see who their enemy was.’” (ei) “After a bout of macho drivel about how they were not impressed by Hizbullah’s arms and would never give in to their demands, he did just that […] All this may sound too good to be true, as it resolves a lot of the contentious issues of the last year and a half in one fell swoop.” (middeno) “‘Saad Hariri let us down’ said one young man in Tarik Jadideh, where the streets were still littered with broken glass on Friday […] “We don’t want the Future Movement any more, or the whole Hariri family.” The man refused to give his name, because Mr. Hariri is such an important figure in the area.” (nyt) “We advised the CIA not to rely on Walid Jumblatt or Saad Hariri because we tested them in 2006 and they proved helpless in the face of Hizbullah.” (middeno) “It is amazing. The fate of the Bush Doctrine was clearly seen on the face of Walid Jumblat during his press conference today.” (angryarab) “Nasrallah speaks as if there is no future, but Jumblat, Hariri and Sanioura speak as if there is no past. For Nasrallah, the past performance and actions of the Loyalists is the only reference point. The past (?) collusion of some of them with Israel, their current alliance with the US and the intersection of some of their positions with the Israeli agenda, as well as the incapability of the Lebanese state to liberate the South and to protect the resistance appear to be the only unit of measure. On the other hand, the trio JHS has been delivering speeches and addresses as if the past did not exist, as if the resistance was not under threat of physical elimination by the Loyalists very allies, as if members of the Loyalists had not destroyed Beirut many times and invited and supported the Israelis when they invaded it, as if there had not been a number of youth killed by the thugs of the Future movement in Tarik al Jadideh and Ard Jalloul, as if there was no Future movement militia in Beirut brought from the North (seen by many on TV and in the streets before the fighting) or PSP (Jumblat) militia (which has murdered Druze political opponents in the mountains), and as if the State was all powerful, belonged to all its citizen, and capable of extending its authority onto the 4 corners of the country and to fend off Israeli agendas. When you start so far away from each others, the next stop is Xanadu” (land&people) [May 10, 2008]
the rush of blood
May 8, 2009
May 8, 2008
***
Hot Town. Simmer in the City.
Since everyone seems to have an opinion (a lot of ‘insightful’ statuses on my friends list on facebook, a lot of ‘fine’ quotes on my MSN contact list), here are my 2 cents. Hezbollah and Amal failed their test yesterday in Beirut. The provocations were deliberate (whether on the street or from the Sarail), and the Shiite parties got dragged in (as can be expected, and as it seemed from the news, it was mostly Amal, a party with a very thuggish past). Don’t get me wrong. This was planned by the government and its thugs, cheered on no doubt by its friends state-side. Politically, they are to blame. But I am disappointed with the Opposition(tm). They should have seen this coming (the Free Patriotic Movement seems to have done so. I heard that Lebanese Forces thugs were waiting for them on the streets in the Matn, but Awnists never showed up).
The biggest loser of course is the working class. The show was stolen by the skirmishes (will anyone remember that the strike everywhere else was peaceful? unlikely). While it was obviously provoked by the loyalists (as it had been twice before in previous protests), Amal/Hezb. were way too eager to retaliate and played into the conspiracy…
Once again, the real issues in Lebanon are being hijacked by sectarian foment. While I do not share the government’s views on Hezbollah’s communication network, and the alleged surveillance of the airport (frankly, I don’t trust this state and it’s geopolitical allegiances), I am angry that the public’s suffering is being used in this way. This isn’t new at all. We all remember how Hezb./Amal covered the Haririst economic policies all these years. The Opposition(tm) is using this righteous issue as a weapon in it’s political tango, and it sickens me (regardless of what I think of their positions in that dance).
It seems the civil war that never really ended rears it’s head again. Some reading material for those interested:
Strike - protest middeno.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/strike-protest/
Rosemary’s baby landandpeople.blogspot.com/2008/05/rosemarys-baby.html
The Legacy of Rafiq Hariri: Dahlan Plan for Lebanon. angryarab.blogspot.com/2008/05/legacy-of-rafiq-hariri-dahlan-plan-for.html
Day 2 of… the civil war? middeno.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/day-2-of-the-civil-war/
Street violence and frozen chicken landandpeople.blogspot.com/2008/05/street-violence-and-frozen-chicken.html
‘Another hot summer’ middeno.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/a-hot-summer/
I’m very interested to see how Nasrallah (the SG of Hezbollah), justfies the current escalation that’s so obviously tainted with sectarian hatred. He had the full support of the great majority of nationalist, progressive and secular people during and after the summer 2006 war, and I do believe that he will be losing it all. This government should have fallen in December 2006 when the opposition had a real popular swell behind it… but the politicians backed down. This government should have fallen after the summer war (as AngryArab notes in the link above) when it became clear to anyone paying attention that it had been rooting for Israel behind closed doors. But the politicians backed down. Rising up today because of the attack on the Hezb’s communication system and on the Shiite head of airport security (the government’s role in an American-Zionist plan, no doubt) reveals the true sectarian nature of this section of the Opposition(tm). No matter what geopolitical gains come out of these troubles vis a vis this region’s struggle against US/rael, no good will come out of this here, on the ground…
Today’s story, so far: middeno.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/blow-by-blow/
Just listened to Nasrallah’s press conference. I must admit, the man makes sense. The geopolitical threats are clear, no doubt about it. Maybe it’s a cruelty of history that yesterday’s workers’ movement is no longer the issue. I still feel the scene was stolen unfairly. I hope the government wises up for once and relents. Its militias can’t win in the streets. It often wins in the media, but in the streets it has no chance. I don’t expect it to do back down, but I still hope it does. There’s no other way out of this.
Nasrallah’s outline of the conspiracy was very accurate. Also, he’s quite right to say that a victim cannot be expected to worry about the feelings of ‘the knife’ hanging over him. Yet, I still don’t feel this was the best way forward. The main issue for me is that Hezbollah took advantage of a general strike to push its agenda (albeit a righteous one), forever conflating the issues in the minds of the already classist and racist Lebanese. Who knows… maybe resistance needs a steelier mind than mine, but I’m not sure the consequences of this action are worth the gains made for our position vis a vis the fight against Israel.
Having said that, I must remember what I told myself recently on a personal matter. I must remember to focus on what I know really is, and not worry too much on how it may seem. I know that in the big picture, Hezbollah is justified. I know very well the level of collaboration with US/rael the loyalists have reached. I know this really isn’t about Sunni and Shia. But it is difficult not to worry because as a student of the media, I also know how easily things can be made to appear as what they are not. And I also know that not everyone cares for what really is; indeed, our history is full of wars based on what seemed. Right now, it seems like civil war. It seems like the Shia versus the Sunni. It doesn’t matter that numerous Sunni leaders and parties have sided with Hezbollah’s actions. It doesn’t matter that the problem is purely political. Bullets don’t care about facticity. And while I admit that I was wrong before to call the actions sectarian, I know full well that the thugs on the ground are fueled mainly by that.
And while it still feels like a trap set for Hezbollah by the US and it’s allies here, let’s say that hopefully, some gains will be made (though I’m not too optimistic). The only thing I’m very sure of is that the workers have been completely forgotten. Whatever happens, prices will still be high, wages will still be low - that is, if there’s still a country left for us to work in.
Welcome to Lebanon, the land of ‘no easy answers’ and ‘no easy way out’….
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