اقلع غماك يا تور و ارفض تلف
اكسر تروس الساقيه و اشتم و تف
قال :بس خطوه كمان…خطوه كمان
يا اوصل نهاية السكه يا البير يجف
عجبى

Via Arabist:

Activists are organizing a sit in at the Press Syndicate, 12 noon, on 9 November, to protest the sexual assaults against women during Eid. The activists are demanding the resignation of General Habib el-Adly, the Interior Minister whose security forces stood by watching the assaults without intervention.

Mohammed Madbuli, a member of [a] prominent family of Cairo publishers, complains:

Members of the security services came to our shop and confiscated 280 copies of [Mohammed Fattuh’s] book: [Modern Sheikhs and the Industry of Religious Extremism]

Anybody heard of this book and/or this incident?

On October 28th, at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, The World Cultural Council will present the 2006 Albert Einstein World Award of Science to –our pride and joy– Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail, the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Physics and professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology.

Prof. Ahmed Zewail’s contribution has literally changed the view of the dynamics of matter and created new femtoscience disciplines, with applications in many areas, including the potential for molecular control with atomic precision.

Over the past seven years, Prof. Zewail has established a new field of research and founded the multi-disciplinary Center of Physical Biology at Caltech. This is a new integrated science of structure and dynamics, with the aim of deciphering the fundamental physics of chemical and biological behaviour, from atoms to cells. Prof Zewail is thus breaking ground at the interface of physics, chemistry and biology. The genesis of these accomplishments was his breakthrough development of 4D imaging, or visualization, of molecular and cellular systems, directly in the four dimensions of space and time, and this seminal work of ultrafast electron microscopy and diffraction has already been published.

On a humane level, Prof. Zewail’s contributions are equally impressive. He is renowned for his tireless efforts to help the less fortunate, for his determination to help his native country, Egypt, and region, for his public lectures on world affairs and for his endeavour to inspire young people in matters of science and technology as well as to put forward peaceful solutions to complex world problems. He is also fully involved with his own home institution, Caltech, and serves on many national and international boards and advisory committees.

Ok, so we all know it is bad, but just how bad? … Dr. Loffredo, you are the Director of the Cancer Genetics and Epidemiology program at Georgetown University Medical Center, and you have been studying tobacco use in Egypt since 1997, surely you can tell us?

People who use these devices don’t realize that they could be inhaling what is believed to be the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes in one typical 30-60 minute session with a waterpipe, because such a large quantity of pure, shredded tobacco is used.

Holy! But … at least the water absorbs the toxins, no?

… that is true to some extent if the toxins are water soluble, but tar isn’t, and tar contains the carcinogens. We believe that, compared to the typical cigarette smoker, waterpipe smokers are exposed to larger total amounts of nicotine, carbon monoxide and certain other toxins. And…

There’s an and?

because the tobacco is burning at a lower temperature, it is more tolerable to inhale deeply, and in fact you need more force to pull air through the high resistance of the water pathway. That means the tobacco smoke can be penetrating deeper in a person’s respiratory tract than cigarette smoke does. The damage could be even worse than seen in cigarette smokers, but we haven’t done studies long enough to quantify the true cancer risk.

Oh, so you haven’t really quantified the risk …

Even so, the incidence of lung cancer is increasing rapidly in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries, comparable to lung cancer rates in the U.S. after cigarette smoking became newly fashionable

But… but… but… it’s sooo good.

Nuestro español bosteza.
Es hambre? Sueño? Hastío?
Doctor, tendrá el estómago vacío?
El vacío es más bien en la cabeza.

(*This is an adaptation of a translation of Antonio Machado’s poem–#50 from Proverbs and Songs–the original talks about Spaniards.)

This is not criticism–vaccuum in the head doesn’t imply brainless, just as hunger doesn’t imply no-stomach. Rather, this is a diagnosis. In that sense, the doctor’s presensce is appropriate (if not called for.) You surely don’t need a doctor to tell you if a stomach is empty or not, but you need one to diagnose the ailment causing the symptoms–hunger, daydreaming, and boredom. The ailment is, as Machado explains: underfed brains. The medicine?

Suehp Rom over at Or Does It Explode posts about a Tunisian exile producing a Tunisian prison map:

Sami Ben Gharbia, a Tunisian exile blogging from the Netherlands at Fikra, has made an important contribution to contextualizing and situating human rights abuses in Tunisia. Using “mashup” technology to match a database to Google Earth maps, he has produced an interactive online Tunisian Prison Map.

What would it take to make an Egyptian one? I mean I have no idea where to start with something like this, but we have not only one Gharbeia of our own, but two. I am guessing Mostafa and Alaa would be able (and possibly interested) too. So, boys, I’m ready when you are.

(h/t O)

In my experience, one of the major problems in Cairo (in addition to the notorious traffic problem) is the prevalence of bullshit (from street, to school, to places of work and worship; and, quite naturally, it has extended to muck up the blogosphere.) And, just like the traffic problem, everyone knows of its existence, each contributes their share, and it takes either great luck or mighty discipline to miss it.

Growing up in such bullshit-filled environment, one can’t help but develop either a high tolerance for it, or an acute allergic reaction to it — or, as is common in Cairo, a schizophrenic combination of both.

The high-tolerance phenomenon is very intuitive — it’s almost an evolutionary necessity; the most adapted are the ones who survive. That is to say, in such bullshit-fogged-up atmosphere, individuals with a high tolerance threshold would be at an advantage, and would therefore thrive! Moreover, not only navigating through this fog, but also exploiting it to one’s benefit would be a favourable skill, and it is therefore no surprise to find it encouraged, even cultivated. We even have a name for individuals who are particularly skillful –fahlawy– which has become synonymous with “clever”.

No doubt it takes a certain cleverness to wade through the mazes of bullshit, but, almost as certain, it comes with the hefty risk of becoming desensitized to bullshit and accepting it as the order of the day. (This is not even going as far as suggesting that “clever” people might come to prefer the kind of environment in which they excel, and would therefore work to sustain the status quo, or even push in the downhill direction where truths are more immersed in bullshit.)

In such a society, it is no wonder then that many a decent truth-seeking individual is marginalized by this process of cultural-selection — some are even driven to commit suicide. But as tragic as this outcome is, it is not the gravest; the undermining of truth to the extent of complete obscurity is a much more serious danger.

On the other extreme, some individuals develop (what I like to call) bullshit-allergy, which (almost always) presents as unwavering (pathological) skepticism. The exposure to a high dose of bullshit, whether gradually over the years or in one lump, drives one to be highly suspicious (to the point of outright dismissal) of any new idea, or even new ways to present an old idea. Creativity is dismissed. Research is dismissed. Alternative ways are dismissed. So are “other” religions, “other” sciences, “other” beliefs, “other” cultures, and “other” peoples. All “other”s are dismissed. (Not to say that “dismissal” is exclusively a symptom of bullshit-allergy and not one of any of a multitude of other social diseases.)

Nature, words on a page, words on a screen, one’s teachers, one’s friends, talking heads on radio and television, and the rest of the world may cry wolf all they want! One already knows the answer, and one is only interested in tidbits of knowledge that confirms that answer. Thank you very much.

As with “cleverness,” and maybe more so, some skepticism is healthy. (Without a healthy amount of both, one goes on wild geese chases way more often than a lifetime can afford.) Too much skepticism, however, halts one in their footsteps. No exploring means no evolving; means no fact-checking; means no understanding. Means truth is compromised.

The interesting and mind boggling thing in Cairo is that you find people with high-tolerance threshold who are also allergic to bullshit! They tolerate the obscene amount of bullshit dumped on them by their government, their work bosses, their teachers, their religious leaders, the police, the media, theatre and cinema, waiters, parking attendants, airport personnel, pretty much all service industry personnel, etc.; just to “survive”. Simultaneously, and without batting an eye at the obvious contradiction, they dismiss any efforts from their government, their bosses, their teachers, their religious leaders, the police, the media, etc.

In most of these cases, whether to unconditionally accept what is being presented -truth and lie- or utterly dismiss it depends on a number of factors that have little to do with whether what has been presented is a truth or a lie. It has to do with other things like: whether it sounds like a truth or a lie; with the audience; with the situation; with the presenter; with the reaction one is expected to have. These determining factors are subjective, and in as much as this is true, either -accepting or dismissing- counts as nothing but the perpetration of bullshit.

No surprises there. (via CocktailPartyPhysics)