Three

You will develop newfound sympathy for your predecessors in the Bush administration. There are a hundred things they could have done differently, but the primary fault for the failure to contain Iran does not lie in Washington.
It lies first with the feckless international community. The United Nations has passed resolutions demanding an end to Iranian [...]

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Update

Again, I apologize for the lack of posting; I have been busy in Boston with student government work and the affairs of women. I am also reworking a paper on Greater Morocco, searching for sources, contacts, etc. This has been rather time consuming. Posting will resume more regularly next week. I will also try to [...]

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A historic birthday

Happy birthday Henry!

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In full

Here is the full chart (English, French) from which the chart posted below was taken; an updated version will be posted soon. It shows the distribution (geographically, politically, sexually, and tribally) of Mauritanian ministries.

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The Tribes and their ministries

This spreadsheet and chart are the beginning of a project started with Mauritanian friends.

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Third World

I was shocked to happen upon a Facebook group titled “India is not a Third World country”. The group seems frustrated with popular views of India being a backwater, with high disease rates and rampant poverty. It would prefer that India be viewed as an advanced and increasingly wealthy country. There is no evidence that [...]

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Chris Matthews: cliché killer?

Peter Howard on why this is my favorite television moment of the year thus far:

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Dredful comments from a dredful woman

A reason to take Hillary Clinton less seriously:
Desperate to get attention for her cause to seat Florida and Michigan delegates, Hillary Clinton compared the plight of Zimbabweans in their recent fraudulent election to the uncounted votes of Michigan and Florida voters saying it is wrong when “people go through the motions of an election only [...]

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I have not posted recently for three reasons: 1) I started a new job and have been occupied with that, and 2) I cut very badly the tips of three of my fingers on one of my hands (in an accident related to my job), which means that it is very difficult for me [...]

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Such nonsense

Ali Eteraz provides a great rebuttal to Edward Luttwak’s absolutely moronic op-ed in the NYT .* Why are there practically no Muslims who are worried about Senator Obama’s alleged apostasy? Because he isn’t an apostate, because he was never a Muslim. And the reason that Luttwak’s piece contains not a single quotation from a Muslim [...]

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My list

A good friend of mine who is also a blogger (though his postings enjoy greater intervals between them than mine do) enjoys compiling lists and determining rankings. His latest is a ranked roster of the books “most important” to him. Since we have read many of the same books, having completed the same secondary curriculum, [...]

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Muthiir lilihtimam!

The poverty of second and third hand sources, as exhibited in Forward:
You might find it odd that a Hebrew word for “interesting” is used regularly in Israeli Arabic. I once asked an Arab friend of mine about this and was told, to my surprise: “That’s because we don’t have our own word for ‘interesting.’ The [...]

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Jesus depicted

“An Iranian’s vision of Jesus’ life stirs debate,” (from 29 April) brings some thoughts to mind. Firstly, it tends towards treating the presentation of the Islamic view of Jesus (عيسى,`Issa) as if it were any different than presenting the Christian view of Jesus. In what way is this film different than Passion of the Christ? [...]

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Lady Cochrane

An interesting Monocle interview with Lebanese aristocrat Lady Yvone Cochrane on urban planning in Beirut and its “collapse from an architectural point of view.” She is disgusted by the inconsistency of urban growth and planning in modern Lebanon. Cochrane states that in addition to the exodus of large numbers of young Christians, “all civilized, educated [...]

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Addendum on Lebanon

[The addendum from the "On Lebanon" post.]

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On Lebanon

“I saw him without a gun, shooting at me, and his bullets pierced me
just like all the other bullets.”
Rashid al-Daif, Passage to Dusk.
There is a very real possibility that tension over Abkhazia will
escalate, so understanding the nature of the conflict is key.
Unfortunately, Applebaum’s analysis sheds no light on the situation,
but rather points to a disturbing [...]

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The working class?

Of course, Hillary is part of the problem, because she embraces this dichotomy and tries to use it to her advantage (taking photo-ops of herself doing shots in a bar, dissing economists, and so forth all while she withholds disclosing her 100 million dollar piggy bank). In her increasing desperation to remain in a race [...]

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“The Spanish equivalent of the U.S. battleship Arizona”

The Spanish do seem to love their New World treasures!

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NYT on Kuwait

In a region where autocracy is the rule, Kuwait is a remarkable exception, with a powerful and truculent elected Parliament that sets the emir’s salary and is the nation’s sole source of legislation. Women gained the right to vote and run for office two years ago, and a popular movement won further electoral changes.
“In Democracy [...]

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On ASMEA

 

Asmea aims to attract centrist scholars such as Mr. Mabry, and its conference dealt with matters that are clearly off-limits at MESA unless approached from an anti-American and anti-Israeli perspective: terrorism and suicide-bombing, for instance. In point of fact, however, relatively few of the 250 attendees last weekend were scholars at universities. Many were members [...]

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