Azar Nafisi’s Memoirs.

From the author of Lolita in Tehran

A book I’m looking forward to reading. Read more of this book review in the Washington Post. Also read an excerpt from Chapter 1. 

Nafisi’s sensory descriptions of Tehran life — the “enticing cacophony” of its streets, the daily forays her mother makes to the market, where she appears to be “so much at home in this world of chocolates, leather, and spices” — are as vivid as the portraits of her exotically dysfunctional family. My one grievance concerning Things I’ve Been Silent About is that, like many a Near Eastern family reunion, the book is excessively crowded. Chatty cousin after chatty cousin, friend after friend, ponderous wise man after ponderous wise man barge into Nafisi’s pages, too briefly described to warrant our interest, crowding and often muddling her narrative. But this is a modest complaint to make about an utterly memorable (pardon the alliteration) memoir.

Slumdog Controversy in India

Slumdog Controversy

 

 

Slumdog Millionaire has made it big, but the story is a little different in India, where the film was shot.

The film hit a sensitive nerve in India, launching soul-searching debates over the actors’ compensation, the movie’s portrait of the country’s vast poor and the title’s use of the word “dog,” which some slum dwellers consider so offensive that they ransacked a theater in Bihar’s state capital of Patna, where the film was being shown in India for the first time.

Read more in the Washington Post.

Samantha Power Returns

Power gets a White House job

 

Some good news for Samantha Power, author and expert on genocide and humanitarian intervention. She will be an Obama aide.

Power, a noted human rights expert who won the Pulitzer for her 2008 book “Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World” about the late U.N. diplomat, made headlines last March during the height of the fierce fight for the Democratic presidential nomination when she called Clinton “a monster” in an interview with a Scottish newspaper. Her remarks set off angry exchanges about the tenor of Obama’s campaign. 

A few hours after her comments were published, Power announced her resignation, saying the remarks were inexcusable and contradictory to her admiration for Clinton.

Check my other posts on Power:

1. American Military Interventions
2. A Cast of 300 Advises Obama on Foreign Policy
3. A Good Pick by Obama: Samantha Power

On John Updike

A very well-written op-ed on John Updike and the number of authors we have recently lost.

IT has been a hard year or so for writers. The world seems to grow emptier and emptier, depletion without replenishment, and now with the passing of John Updike at the age of 76, death has taken perhaps its biggest prize.

Literature, of course, is not a contest. Still, that Stockholm did not ultimately embrace Mr. Updike — a Nobel, why not? — seems too bad, as it probably would have meant a lot to him, and to us as well to have his erudition and hard work and enthusiastic witnessing of postwar America honored on such a stage. The news that he died in a hospice not far from his house, and the new ordinariness of this current manner of death, made me wonder what he would have noticed and written about it —“I’m sure it will be discovered he was taking notes,” a friend said, hopefully — for he was gifted at describing everything.

Read more about John Updike and his poem Requiem.

You can also read my book review regarding his recent novel The Terrorist.

Charlie Rose Interview with Bob Simon

 

Charlie Rose interview wtih Bob Simon on the West Bank. Check out also other Charlie Rose interviews including a tribute to author John Updike.

TIME: How al-Arabiya Got the Obama Interview

The story behind the interview in TIME magazine:

How did a journalist for an Arab-language broadcaster score the first television interview granted by President Barack Obama? Well, at first, Hisham Melhem, the Washington bureau chief for al-Arabiya, a Saudi-backed news channel headquartered in Dubai, thought he was getting someone else. Not that he hadn’t tried — like everyone else in Washington — to snag the historic first.

Melhem says there apparently was an internal debate at the White House about whether it was the right time for Obama to grant an interview to the Arab media, but that when the decision was made, several advisers recommended it be granted to al-Arabiya. The channel is seen as a prominent voice of moderation in the Middle East, preferring calm analysis to what many see as rival al-Jazeera’s more sensational coverage. The Obama scoop came at a good moment for al-Arabiya, which had seen ratings falter as al-Jazeera provided blanket coverage of Palestinian suffering during the recent Israeli war in Gaza

‘Buying’ Journalists in Iraq

Land for Favorable Media Coverage?

Mr. Maliki has pledged to give plots of land to journalists.From an article in the New York Times. Be careful what you read in the Iraqi press:

BAGHDAD — At a recent meeting with the Iraqi journalists’ union, Prime MinisterNuri Kamal al-Maliki made a pledge that would have scandalized the Iraqis’ American counterparts: the government would give plots of land to thousands of journalists, for a nominal price or possibly even free.

A campaign sign for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq. Mr. Maliki has pledged to give plots of land to journalists.

His timing, a month before provincial elections, as well as his admonition to journalists to focus on stories of progress and reconstruction, might be seen as an attempt to buy favorable news coverage.

Video [CBS] 60 Minutes: Is Peace Possible

Has peace in the Middle East become nothing more than a pipe dream? As Bob Simon reports, a growing number of Israelis and Palestinians feel that a two-state solution is no longer possible.

The Rise of the Self-Publishing Industry and the Decline of Publishing Companies

An interesting article in the New York Times on the rise of the self-publishing industry and the decline of publishing companies in the midst of the financial crisis.

As traditional publishers look to prune their booklists and rely increasingly on blockbuster best sellers, self-publishing companies are ramping up their title counts and making money on books that sell as few as five copies, in part because the author, rather than the publisher, pays for things like cover design and printing costs.

The self-publishing companies generally make their money either by charging author fees — which can range from $99 to $100,000 for a variety of services, including custom cover design and marketing and distribution to online retailers, or by taking a portion of book sales, or both.

Some, like Lulu Enterprises and CreateSpace from Amazon.com, allow the author to create the book free, but then make their money on a small printing markup and a profit split with the author.

For some authors, the appeal of self-publishing is that they can put their books on the market much faster than through traditional publishers.

In 2008, Author Solutions, which is based in Bloomington, Ind., and operates iUniverse as well as other print-on-demand imprints including AuthorHouse and Wordclay, published 13,000 titles, up 12 percent from the previous year.

Top Sites in Jordan

Yahoo, Google and Facebook topped the list of most visited sites in Jordan but there are also interesting ones that made it in the top 100. Ad Dustour newspaper took a dive while Al Ghad is steadily improving, making it the second most read newspaper. Community sites like Jeeran (26) and Maktoob (eight) are up there as well.

Check the top 100 visited sites in Jordan…

Video: Obama Interview with Al Arabiya Television

Obama speaking to the Arab world.

My Two Cents on Jordan’s Educational System

From today’s Jordan Times on Jordanian students:

Habashneh said one can hardly find a school or a college student who is interested in reading a book or attending cultural seminars, calling for finding a new approach to encourage dialogue and communication with young people in order to enrich their cultural knowledge.

“We need to adopt a comprehensive national and cultural approach, away from the political dimension and regional problems. The government should focus on a new mechanism capable of making the younger generation more interested in culture rather than being involved in tribal or regional affiliations,” he added, suggesting more cooperation between the ministries of education, culture and higher education to introduce extracurricular activities in schools and universities where students can interact.

Actually that is not the solution to the problem. The problem is the system of education that hardly encourages participation, critical thinking and analysis but is more focused on memorization and tests. At the end of the day we have to deal with the core of the problem which is the education system especially in public schools. Yes, Jordan has one of the highest literacy rates in the Middle East but we need to examine the quality of education. The problem with the system is that many Jordanian children grow up, go to college and once they are in college they are surprised when they have to analyze or are asked to think critically. I have heard this not only from students but a Sociology professor at one of Jordan’s most prestigious universities. When he asked the students to write what they think during an exam, many of the students had memorized what the professor had said in class and the professor was surprised to find that almost all the exam papers looked the same. He thought the students had cheated but in fact they did not. He realized that those were his own exact words. 

I feel strongly about this subject. Sometimes you have to change a system that is broken and decayed. The system itself becomes the elephant in the room and you cannot continue washing the elephant, brushing the elephant and putting hair clips on its ears to make it look pretty.  The bottom line is there’s an elephant in the room.

Obama’s Mideast Policy Examined

 

Listen to Rami Khouri on NPR.

 

Richard Holbrooke has been named special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and George Mitchell has been picked to be special envoy for Middle East affairs. Rami Khouri, editor at large of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut, Lebanon, and director for the Fares Institute of Public Policy and International Affairs, weighs in.

NPR: Freedom Of Information Isn’t Just For Journalists

The Freedom of Information act is one of the vital lessons I learned about in college and the fact the Obama so Wednesday’s announcement at the White House was great. NPR reported on this story. 

President Obama told the nation, “every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known.”

But the real glory of the Freedom of Information law is how it gives ordinary people, all of us, ownership over the information.Every military veteran, every senior citizen, every private business ought to be cheering the president on because those are the folks who really use the Freedom of Information Act.

I know what you’re thinking — the Freedom of Information Act, that’s just for journalists, isn’t it?

No. Reporters and researchers like me file only a small percentage of the information requests to the federal government.

Friedman on the Two-State Solution

 

 

 

 

Here’s Tom Friedman’s column in the New York Times. He mentions one thing that is vital for any peacemaker: “a peacemaker has to be both a nation-builder and a negotiator.” But as far as his conclusion goes ‘freezing settlements’ is not the only thing required from the Israelis–there’s a lot more that needs to be done. 

What makes it so challenging for the new Obama team is that Mideast diplomacy has been transformed as a result of the regional disintegration since Oslo — in three key ways.

First, in the old days, Henry Kissinger could fly to three capitals, meet three kings, presidents or prime ministers and strike a deal that could hold. No more. Today a peacemaker has to be both a nation-builder and a negotiator.

Oped: Lesson of a Bloody War

A very well written op-ed in the Washington Post By David Grossman on the aftermath of the war on Gaza.

Like the pairs of foxes in the biblical story of Samson, tied together by the tail with a flaming torch between them, we and the Palestinians are dragging each other into disaster — despite our disparate strength, and even when we try very hard to separate. And as we do, we burn the one who is bound to us, our double, our nemesis, ourselves.

So, a month after the war began, in the midst of the wave of nationalist invective now sweeping Israel, it would not hurt to keep in mind that this latest military operation in Gaza was, when all is said and done, just one more way-station on a road paved with fire, violence and hatred. On this road, you sometimes win and you sometimes lose, but in the end it leads to ruin.

Iraq Election Highlights Ascendancy of Tribes

An article from the Washington Post by the great journalist and author Anthony Shadid on Iraqi elections and tribes.

How sad it is to know that nothing has changed in the Arab world, as the article clearly illustrates, when it comes to political participation and elections:

Here, the new Iraq looks like the old one, imbued with politics that might be familiar to Gertrude Bell, the British diplomat and adventurer who drew the country’s borders after World War I.

There is a saying heard these days in Anbar: “Everyone claims they have the love of Laila, but Laila loves none of them.” In other words, Laila gets to choose. The same might be said of the tribes, whose mantle everyone claims and which often demand a tidy sum for their support. Coddled and cultivated, the tribes are kingmakers.

“The center of power in Anbar,” Hais called them as he sat in the guesthouse, decorated with purple, red and yellow plastic flowers, with 25 tribal leaders gathered over a sprawling, artery-clogging dish of chicken, lamb and a slab of fat, mixed with rice.

NYT Magazine: Mideast Revolution, Facebook-Style

Facebook, a platform for democracy?

A great article in the New York Times Magazine  written by Samantha Shapiro on the power of building civil society organizations in the Mideast (Egypt) and moving towards the path of democratization through the use of a powerful tool like Facebook. 

When I spoke to Wael Nawara, a 47-year-old Ghad activist who is a co-founder of the party, he explained why, for him, getting on Facebook was such a big eye-opener. If you look at Egyptian politics on the surface, he said, you might think that the Muslim Brotherhood is the only alternative to the Mubarak regime. But “Facebook revealed a liberal undercurrent in Egyptian society,” Nawara said. “In general, there’s this kind of apathy, a sense that there is nothing we can do to change the situation. But with Facebook you realize there are others who think alike and share the same ideals. You can find Islamists there, but it is really dominated by liberal voices.”

In Washington, there is increasing interest in the April 6 Youth Movement. James Glassman, the outgoing under secretary of state for public diplomacy, told me he followed the group closely. “It’s not easy in Egypt, and in other countries in the Middle East, to form robust civil-society organizations,” he said. “And in a way that’s what these groups are doing, although they’re certainly unconventional.”

Other State Department officials told me they believe that social-networking software like Facebook’s has the potential to become a powerful pro-democracy tool. They pointed to recent developments in Saudi Arabia, where in November a Facebook group helped organize a national hunger strike against the kingdom’s imprisonment of political opponents, and in Colombia, where activists last February used Facebook to organize one of the largest protests ever held in that country, a nationwide series of demonstrations against the FARCinsurgency. Not long ago, the State Department created its own group on Facebook called “Alliance of Youth Movements,” a coalition of groups from a dozen countries who use Facebook for political organizing. Last month, they brought an international collection of young online political activists, including one from the April 6 group, as well as Facebook executives and representatives from Google and MTV, to New York for a three-day conference.

NYTIMES: The Bullets in My In-Box

A great New York Times article written by By Ethan Bronner:

It turns out that both narration and mediation require common ground. But trying to tell the story so that both sides can hear it in the same way feels more and more to me like a Greek tragedy in which I play the despised chorus. It feels like I am only fanning the flames, adding to the misunderstandings and mutual antagonism with every word I write because the fervent inner voice of each side is so loud that it drowns everything else out.

George Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader who is Mr. Obama’s new special envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, could find something similar when he arrives here.

Favorite Films and TV Series

Here are my top favorite films so far:

The Visitor-Richard Jenkins

 

Slumdog Millionaire

Milk--Sean Penn

Dark Knight

Mamma Mia

Recycle - Set in Zarqa, Jordan.

Persepolis

 

Here are my favorite TV series so far: 

Brothers and Sisters (Great Cast)

Ugly Betty

Headcases (Hilarious)

Without a Trace

Criminal Minds

The Mentalist

Monk

Eleventh Hour

 

Video: Oprah Effect in the Middle East

Satellite television has reached even conservative parts of the Arab world, where hundreds of programs are now available. The Middle East’s MBC-4 began airing “The Oprah Winfrey Show” more than four years ago, and the program now reaches about 6 million viewers in the Arab world each day.

Worldfocus correspondent Kristen Gillespie reports from Jordan on the “Oprah effect” in the Middle East.

Frontline Video: Dreams of Obama

 

 

On the eve of Barack Obama’s historic inauguration, FRONTLINE examines the rich personal and political biography of America’s 44th president, offering insight into the key moments and experiences that have shaped him and formed his political vision. 

Watch online the full program

The story begins at the Democratic Convention in 2004 when Barack Obama, a little-known candidate for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, stepped forward to tell his personal story and to call for a move beyond partisan politics.

FRONTLINE reviews the critical life experiences that made Obama uniquely suited to launch his successful campaign to become the country’s first African American president: his community organizing days in Chicago, his presidency of the Harvard Law Review, and his rise to the top of Illinois politics, in the course of which he learned how to navigate America’s complicated racial and political divides.

Books I’d Like to Read

Books I’d like to read

 

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Dowd: Exit the Boy King

Maureen Dowd’s op-ed in the New York Times beautifully written a day after Obama’s inauguration:

I’ve seen many presidents come and go, but I’ve never watched a tableau like the one Tuesday, when four million eyes turned heavenward, following the helicopter’s path out of town. Everyone, it seemed, was waving goodbye, with one or two hands, a wave that moved westward down the Mall toward the Lincoln Memorial, and keeping their eyes fixed unwaveringly on that green bird.

It was a morning of such enormous emotion and portent — jaw-dropping, Dow-dropping and barrier-dropping — that even the cool new president had to feel daunted to see his blocks-long motorcade and two million hope-besotted faces beaming up at him, dreaming that he can save their shirts.

The Journey is Long for Jordanians

While the world ponders the meaning of change, hope and unity after Obama’s inauguration, Jordanians seem to have a long way to go.

Members of two party-affiliated groups clashed on Tuesday evening at a demonstration to “bid farewell” to former US president George W. Bush.

Youth members of the Jordanian Democratic Popular Unity Party (Wihda) and the Arab Baath Socialist Party fought over who would lead the chanting at the event, organised by Wihda’s Move campaign at the Professional Associations Complex in Shmeisani.

More than 30 activists from both parties took part in the fight, which led to the cancellation of a theatrical performance and poetry recital organised on the sidelines of the event, according to Move.

 

Video: President Obama’s Inaugural Address

An Open Letter to President Obama

 

Here’s a very thoughtful letter to President Obama written by Faisal Abbas.

Here’s an excerpt:

I utilized my stay in the US to learn more about Edward Murrow and the history and achievements of American journalism; and while there were many arguments made about the role the American media is playing today, especially with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I found it quite comforting to know that at least under the first amendment, one could really say anything one likes.

Based on all of that, Sir, I find myself at ease in writing this letter to you, hoping you manage to read it before your Blackberry is taken away and you start consuming media in the form of briefings, as I clearly don’t think I am so important to make it into one of those.

All what I want to say, Mr. President, is that you bring a lot of hope to my region, and that people are counting on you to make a change for the better and to once and for all bring peace and prosperity to this very troubled part of the world.

We know that we shouldn’t be expecting miracles, and that there are more pressing issues on your agenda, especially the economy which the whole world expects you to focus on for everyone’s sake.

However, Sir, unlike myself… you are in no way, shape or form an ‘average Joe’, as of today you are leading the world’s number 1 super-power, and you are doing this after winning a battle with preconceived ideas and racial barriers that you have managed to overcome.

Transcript of Obama Inaugural Speech

Obama makes history

 

 

Full transcript as prepared for delivery of President Barack Obama’s inaugural remarks on Jan. 20, 2009, at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted – for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things – some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

Obama: A Team of Expatriates

 

Here’s an article in Newsweek on how many of Obama’s top advisers have learned and lived abroad.

It’s a common point among Obama’s top aides, a surprising number of whom grew up in other countries—the insight they developed by seeing America from the outside in. 

Workshop in Amman demonstrates power of filmmaking

Yasir Khan conducted the filmmaking workshop in Amman

 

 

January 19, 2009

By Rana Sweis

AMMONNEWS – During a 10 day workshop, members of non-governmental organizations as well as university students in Jordan got a glimpse into the power of filmmaking. The workshop focused on the use of film in shedding light on social issues in Jordan. The first few days were spent discussing theoretical aspects of filmmaking and exchanging ideas. The young NGO members spent almost four days shooting and then began writing, editing and mixing. This week, all four short documentaries were shown at the Royal Film Commission. Topics covered by NGO members included adult literacy, autism, student rights and a day in the life of a social worker in Jordan.

The workshop conducted by Yasir Khan, Professor at the American University of Cairo and a multimedia journalist and documentary filmmaker, says he hopes the participants will continue to use what they learned to create documentaries. On the first day of the workshop, Khan made sure the various ideas pointed out by the students remained focused. “Craft a focus statement and come back tomorrow,” he told the participants. “Every shot has to have meaning.”

As the students sat mixing and editing, many say they were pleased with this opportunity, the first of its kind in the kingdom. “It was a great opportunity for me and it is a way to convey to the public severe social problems in Jordan,” says Abdullah Momani, a journalism student at Yarmouk University.

New Yorker: Death of Newspapers

Here’s an article in The New Yorker on the so-called ‘death’ of print newspapers. Interesting read.

The newspaper is dead. You can read all about it online, blog by blog, where the digital gloom over the death of an industry often veils, if thinly, a pallid glee. The Newspaper Death Watch, a Web site, even has a column titled “R.I.P.” Or, hold on, maybe the newspaper isn’t quite dead yet. At its funeral, wild-eyed mourners spy signs of life. The newspaper stirs!

The last time the American newspaper business got this gothic was 1765, just after the first gothic novel, Horace Walpole’s “The Castle of Otranto,” was published, in London, and, in an unrelated development, Parliament decided to levy on the colonies a new tax, requiring government-issued stamps on pages of printed paper—everything from indenture agreements to bills of credit to playing cards. The tax hit printers hard, at a time when printers were also the editors of newspapers, and sometimes their chief writers, too. The Stamp Act—the “fatal Black-Act,” one printer called it—was set to go into effect on November 1, 1765. Beginning that day, printers were to affix stamps to their pages and to pay tax collectors a halfpenny for every half sheet—amounting, ordinarily, to a penny for every copy of every issue of every newspaper—and a two-shilling tax on every advertisement. Printers insisted that they could not bear this cost. It would spell the death of the newspaper.

Video: Dave Letterman and Bush Montage

 

Great Moments in Presidential Speeches.

On Friday, January 16, Dave Letterman aired the segment’s final installment.

America’s Pre-Inauguration Mood

 

Here’s an-depth survey conducted by the pew research centre on the mood in America.

Public confidence in Barack Obama to deal with the nation’s most pressing problems is quite high, with about seven-in-ten saying they have at least a fair amount of confidence that he will do the right thing when it comes to mending the economy, preventing terrorism, and dealing with Iraq. Notably, many Americans not only see the president-elect as a problem-solver, but as a “uniter” as well.

Read more and  view polling charts on many issues

Bill Moyers on Gaza

Bill Moyers reflects on the Middle East.

Watch this thoughtful essay.

 

 

Watch the reaction to this essay

 

Queen Noor on Gaza-MSNBC

More of Queen Noor on Gaza

Aspiring Saudi Filmmakers Offer a Different Take

 

Here’s an important article in the Washington Post on the power filmmaking which is beginning to take hold on the Arab world–on a grassroots level. 

 

Khalif is part of a new group of young Saudi movie buffs who are making films that question their country’s strict, puritanical mores and customs and its ban on movie theaters. The group, called Talashi, which means Fade Out, includes a pharmacist, a teacher, a lawyer and five film reviewers, mostly secular Saudis who say their worldviews were influenced by their love of film and the worlds to which it has exposed them.

But in pursuing their passion, the group is confronting the kingdom’s powerful clerics and going up against decades of culture that branded movies a Western evil that would strip the country of its conservative Muslim nature.

Filmmakers sometimes arrange for private screenings at their homes or at the homes of friends. Over the past couple of years, short films have been shown sporadically in auditoriums and literary clubs. To circumvent the wrath of powerful anti-film groups, the showings are advertised in the local media as “educational films” or “visual shows.”

Al Sijill: Great Jordanian Media Outlet

I have found Al Sijill to be one of the few media outlets in Jordan that present in-depth, professional and investigative news reports and analysis. I know also two people that contribute regularly to the newspaper that are very professional in their field. 

I am glad that we have this weekly newspaper online as well. I hope Jordanians and others will begin to give it the attention it deserves. You can also read the whole issue in PDF form and view archived issues. 

 

The Brave Dennis Kucinich

From Congressman Kucinich

As Congress begins, I have been leading the way towards addressing the humanitarian plight of the people of Gaza whose desperate conditions must be addressed if there is to be any chance for peace in the Middle East. I have also begun a campaign to work on the reform of our monetary system in order to bring about equity, prosperity and environmental sustainability.    

I had to spend the resources you provided me with in order to retain my seat in Congress. I need your generous help again to fund our ongoing political operations including media outreach, web communications, office administration and issues campaigning.

I know these are hard times, but your contribution is essential to strengthening our efforts. Please contribute as generously as you can. Your support assures a true independent voice in Congress.

With hope and in peace,

Dennis

Please contribute at http://www.Kucinich.us/contribute

Photos of Jordanians Protesting

Photos of a peaceful protest in Amman to end the bloodshed in Gaza. The protest included mostly young university students representing different political ideologies. A week later, protests in Amman and elsewhere in the country turned somewhat violent and the number of people protesting increased dramatically. 

 

 

Kennedy’s Inauguration Speech

 

Barack Obama’s inauguration is January 20. In commemorating this occasion, here is John F. Kennedy’s speech from 1961. You can find an archive of inaugural speech transcripts here.

 

Part II

GlobalPost offers world news to ailing U.S. papers

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Overseas reporting was one of the first areas curtailed by U.S. newspapers stung by deep budget cuts in recent years. GlobalPost, an online news outlet that launches on Monday, wants to restore that coverage.

With 65 correspondents in 46 countries, GlobalPost will have its own website and sell news to papers whose readers want in-depth, analytical stories that supplement what they get from news wires such as The Associated Press, Reuters and Bloomberg.

“There is an enormous appetite for knowing what’s happening in the world,” said Philip Balboni, GlobalPost’s president and chief executive. “It’s just not being met by traditional media.”

Read more…

Noteworthy Film Performances this Year

 

One of the best performances this year: Sean Penn in Milk. A runner up for best foreign film is Waltz with Bashir, which I have not seen. I saw the trailer and it looks really good. Another great movie this year is Grand Torino. Clint Eastwood is another brilliant actor.

Sean Penn tops the list of my favorite actors. He really studies and researches his characters and his passion for acting is impressive, whether it is in I Am Sam or 21 Grams or The Interpreter. 

Here’s an article in the New York Times on award ceremonies this year:

AS Hollywood heads into the heart of its awards season, America’s annual orgy of pop-culture glamour, movie stars and their handlers have a decision to make: to preen or not to preen.

Creating Change Through Art

 

I’m very proud of my cousin, Tara Hanna (10th grade), who not only created an impressive website to showcase the art work of  the mentally challenged in Jordan, but used creative methods to shed light on this issue in Jordan.

This is Tara’s story:

Wecjordan2.com was inspired by a need to raise awareness for an invisible community within our society-the mentally challenged. It is the aim of this site to promote integration and to highlight the positive contribution that this group can have on humanity.

This website is a display case to show our society in Jordan and in the global community that the mentally challenged have equality and dignity and a right to be fulfilled and to lead productive lives. As things stand in Jordan, and in the wider Middle East, the mentally challenged are concealed from the public. This underscores feelings of inadequacy and shame among the families of this group. Our aim is to boost their profile, raise awareness and to remove stigma through awareness.

7 Jordanian citizens were trained in basic Art techniques. They were then invited to 3 world renowned places of historical, cultural and touristic interest in Jordan. They experienced the splendor and interacted with their surroundings. They returned to their centre and translated what they saw into pieces of art. This art can be seen on the site with a description of the places and a response and criticism of each piece of work by each artist. The message of this site is that the mentally challenged are a gift that should be cherished and not hidden away. Their art demonstrates that there is a world of possibilities to be explored when interacting with them and that they have a right to express how they see their world.

For information on how to make a donation please feel free to email Tara Hanna at wecjordan2@gmail.com 

What Google Can Do for Journalism

 

From the Huffington Post’s Dan Froomkin:

Via Romenesko, I see Google CEO Eric Schmidt telling Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky that he wants to help newspapers survive – he just doesn’t know how.

“What if the newspaper industry does go down?” Lashinsky asks.

Schmidt replies: “To me this presents a real tragedy in the sense that journalism is a central part of democracy. And if it can’t be funded because of these business problems, then that’s a real loss in terms of voices and diversity. And I don’t think bloggers make up the difference. The historic model of investigative journalists in any industry is something that is very fundamental. So the question is, What can you do about this? I think it is a fair statement to say we’re still looking for the right answer.”

Read more…

Peace and War in the Middle East

Queen Noor on Gaza