When you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope; he goes away and works on what he has seen.

Leaving Beirut (live in NY pts 1 and 2)

This is one of the greatest lines I’ve heard in a while:
Every time a smart bomb does its sums and gets it wrong
Someone else’s child dies and equities in defence rise


It would be nice to catch him in TO this summer, but I should sleep on it for a couple of weeks and see if I still wanna do it then.

An Evening with Roger Waters
Rogers Centre, Toronto, ON
Sat, Jul 14, 2007 08:00 PM

Leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving…

via sharkawy (arabic)

Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years - but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at school, he places oil [at] centre stage as the cause of all commotion. This innovative history programme is based around Robert Newman’s stand-up act and supported by resourceful archive sequences and stills with satirical impersonations of historical figures from Mayan priests to Archduke Ferdinand. Quirky details such as a bicycle powered street lamp on the stage brings home the pertinent question of just how we are going to survive when the world’s oil supplies are finally exhausted.

Absolutely brilliant, and very very funny. Link.

Since the advent of online video hosting, a number of videos have appeared on the internet showing Egyptian police –to put it very mildly– mistreating and humiliating citizens in the most deplorable ways. Most recently, two videos were widely circulated; one showing a man being violated by some sort of a stick (maybe a broom handle), and the other showing a man being repeatedly slapped on the face. I didn’t link to the videos at the time, and I won’t now, for reasons that will hopefully become clear by the end of the post.

First, let us examine the process with which these kinds of videos become available. It is hard to tell who’s doing the recording in every single case, so a generalization wouldn’t be fair. However, in many cases it appears –or at the very least it is plausible– that the incidents are being recorded by the perpetrators’ colleagues (talk about adding insult to injury.) Some videos are then leaked and posted online (I say leaked because I can’t imagine someone being arrogant or stupid enough to post self-implicating videos online, but I could be wrong.) These videos are then further popularized when certain popular blogs link to them (if not being the ones to post them in the first place). And, in the case of the aforementioned incidents, a certain newspaper report, complete with stills from the videos, brought the topic to a wider audience (which reportedly led to an investigation by the general prosecutor.)

As far as I can tell, not a single link in this chain has gone to any length to conceal the identity of the victims. Of course, one doesn’t expect the perpetrators of such heinous crimes to respect their victims’ privacy, but what about everyone else?

Don’t get me wrong; I am totally in favor of making these records available to the public, if not for anything but for raising awareness at the very least; I also applaud the efforts of these bloggers, and the reporters who helped bring this case to the public. However, in the course of raising awareness and fighting for justice, one has to be careful not to trample on the rights of these victims; one should employ all possible means to spare them any extra humiliation.

There are ways to tread that line. In these particular cases, simple video-editing to distort the faces of the victims would’ve done the trick; it would’ve concealed the identity of the victims while still delivering the desired impact.

I have not provided any legal arguments here, partly because I am ignorant of such arguments (and maybe those knowledgeable about the law could enlighten me (us) on that perspective,) but mainly because this is intended as a friendly reminder of sentiments that I believe should be upheld by anyone claiming to defend human rights.

A few days ago, I watched–on some local channel–an interview with Jack Silberman, the director of the documentary Raised to be Heroes, produced by the National Film Board of Canada:

They will fight for their country, they will die for their country, but not in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And although they act on conscience, they pay a steep personal price. Featuring haunting accounts from the front lines, Raised to Be Heroes introduces the latest generation of Israeli soldiers to selectively object to military operations undertaken by their country.

I haven’t seen the film yet (I’m keeping an ear out for it) but from what clips I’ve seen, and the interview, I’ve extrapolated this: Despite the specific story that the film tells, the message is broadly applicable; This is but one instance of the fight against indoctrination; It’s a call for the personal examination and, if necessary, re-evaluation, of instilled doctrines that conflict with moral principles.

We’ve got some homework to do.

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.

Laila Lalami argues:

Muslim women are used as pawns by Islamist movements that make the control of women’s lives a foundation of their retrograde agenda, and by Western governments that use them as an excuse for building empire. These women have become a politicized class, prevented by edicts and bombs from taking charge of their own destinies. The time has come for the pawns to be queened.

Agree or not, the article is worth a careful read.

via rockslinga.

Why? The simplest answer is -without having to get into too much politics and/or ethics- he would’ve done the same for me.

From Egypt:

Some governEgyptments think they can trampEgyptle the rights of those that oppEgyptose them and noEgyptone will notEgyptice. Well, that fact is changEgypting and we are changEgypting it.

read more.