So, the government decided to finally release the detained activists on Saturday, and they arrived on Saturday night back to Cairo, unharmed and all. There was no beating, there was no torture, unless you count having to spend a whole day and night in a small room without anything to lay or sit on torture. Well, actually, there was some torturous activities, according to Demagh Mak (who was arrested there for those too lazy to read the previous post ), but it came from the new and excited activists who joined that marsh. They saw too many Arabic movies about being detained by the authorities, and decided they need to act like detainees in those movies, by chanting " We are more free behind bars than you are in real life", and then proceeding to sing patriotic songs in order to "fight the oppressors with our music". I don't know about you, but being locked in the same room with people doing that, that's some cruel and unusual punishment right there. Pity the youngins, why do they always have to be this lame?

Besides that, the story is very straightforward: the activists arrived at Nag3 Hamady really early in the morning, and being on a Friday with half of the town still sleeping, they headed to the local coffee shop for morning tea and Shisha. Not 30 seconds passed by, and 6 huge state security trucks stop by, alongside paddy wagons, and they scoop them all in and arrest them. The person who told on them? A member of the Tagamo3 leftist party. Anyway… So, the drive from the coffee shop to the Police station was 3 minutes, so they all proceeded to make frantic phone calls to anyone they know in order to tell them what's going on. They then arrive at the station, and have all of their phone taken (except Amira el Tahawy, who managed to hide hers) and ended up spending the day getting interrogated, and at night they were presented to the public prosecutor without lawyers, who started making up shit in his reports about how they were arrested in a demonstration and were chanting this or that, and then they were sent back to their cells to spend the night. The Girls, because they are smart, did a sit-in and a hunger strike, and in order not to have a big incident on their hands, the police ended up moving them to the local hospital, where they spent their night. But in the time they spent in their jail-cell, they came upon an interesting discovery: a graffiti written by one of the Killers of Nag3 Hamady. It said "If defending one's right is a crime, then long-live the world of crime". I am guessing he sees killing 17 year olds to be righteous. He is good people. Great values.

The next morning, the order for the release of the activists was made, and they chose not to tell them. They just left them there till noon, and then went and gotten them out of their cells, put them in Mini-buses, and sent them back to Cairo. They are all safe, sound and exhausted. They still got no explanation as to why they were treated this way, and they never got to reach the families of the victims to offer their condolences. Having muslims consoling the families of Christian victims of muslim hate-crimes, well, that's just too much of a risk apparently. It might lessen the hate or something, and we can't have that.

You know, whenever someone would say that the government is behind the sectarian tensions, I would call bullshit, because the government doesn't fill the minds of shooters with hate, give them guns, and have them pull the trigger. That's coming from the people themselves. That belief has not changed to me: the people are responsible here. The people are responsible for their hate, but the government … the government doesn't help lessen it in any way. It's best to keep them divided…easier to rule this way.

Sectarianism is stupid.

I know, I am not breaking any new grounds here. Not exactly the mind-blowing thought-provoking statement one would hope would come out of the writer of those words after such a long absence, but.. it's nonetheless true. Sectarianism is stupid. There is no arguing that.

Unfortunately, in a country like Egypt, sectarianism is alive and well, because the people are mostly stuck on stupid. And when I mean people, I mean all people. The citizens, the politicians, the police, the whole shebang. They are all stuck on stupid.

And don't get me wrong…I am not saying that its stupid in order to cover-up the evil that is taking place here. Make no mistake, there is evil here; But there is also a whole shitload of Stupid. And we will go over all of it, because every now and then, you meet the kind of stupidity that just leaves you in awe. The kind of stupid that breaks stupidity records. The kind of stupid that will have the mentally disabled give you a dirty look and be like "BOY, you are RETARDED!"

The kind of Stupid only Egyptians are capable of.

Our kind of stupid.

So, where to begin this stupid tale?

Well, I guess some background information is in order.

It all started on January 6 — Christmas Eve according to the Christian Coptic Church — when six Coptic Christians (not one above 17 years old) and a policeman were killed in a drive-by shooting while exiting their church in Nag3 Hamady, Upper Egypt. The 3 killers were muslims, who claimed they did it in retaliation to some Christian dude raping some muslim chick in another town. Now, pay attention, cause this is where the special kind of stupid starts: The Killers instead of killing the alleged rapist, or even attacking his house or family house, chose to indiscriminately open fire on a bunch of Christians leaving the Christmas midnight mass, because really, if one Christian is to blame, then all Christians are guilty, so just shoot whichever one you find on your way home. Also, do that on their holiest of days as they are leaving church, because that's not bound to turn some heads or nothing.

And so it was…

Naturally, most of Egypt woke up to the news like a drunk college student with a massive hangover: Incomprehension followed by confusion followed by a sense of certainty that while you don't know how yet, this shit is gonna cost you. The Christians were all shocked, and then their reactions varied between fear, disgust and fury. There was no calming them. Nothing none of us could say. And of course what happened next did not help a bit.

The government of course tried to change the conversation, saying that this is not a sectarian-crime, but more of a criminal- crime, that just happened to have muslim shooters and Christian victims, done on the most important christian holiday, in front of the local chruch as christians were leaving mass. To corroborate their story, they dragged in the Christian governor of Qena- where Nag3 Hamady is- and had him say that to the press, even mentioning the alleged rape as if to somehow justify what happened. The Christians at Nag3 Hamady didn't take that too well, and started to demonstrate against the shooters and the government, to which the local state security troops responded with 1) beating them up or 2) letting the muslim residents of Nag3 Hamady beat them while they watched, hoping that this would scare the christians down, like it always does. STUPID!

It of course didn't work, and a riot broke out, which lead to clashes that lead to riots which lead to clashes and so one and so forth. The Father of the Church there, Korollos, tried to calm his people down, urging them to turn the other cheek like they always do, but for the first time in a really long time, many of his flock refused to listen, and started fighting with him in the church. The calm wasn't going to come without Justice, and the local police forces were not ready to provide the kind of justice the Christians demanded, because the shooters are muslims who killed defending muslim honor. So, if they do come down hard on the shooters, they will anger the muslim community in Nag3 Hamady, and they may start to shoot at the police as well as the Christians. And who wants that? Not the police, surely!

So the game starts getting fixed, with newspapers carefully pushing the line that the shooters didn't intend to kill the chirstians, but rather to disable them. I shit you not, they said that their aim was to shoot them in the legs and drive away, but when they started falling because they were being shot in the leg, some of those low-aiming bullets hit the fallen in their chests, killing them. Yeah. How about that for stupid?

So, feeling that someone needs to counter this level of stupidity with action, a group of 30 activists that includes bloggers Wael Abbas, Demagh Mak and Wa7da Masreyah, flanked by a number of opposition figured, decided that they will head to Nag3 Hamady by train yesterday morning, in order to pay their respect and provide condolences to the families of those slain in the shootings. The Police at Nag3 Hamady caught a wind of this, naturally, and feeling extra extra stupid, decided that the activists must be coming in to cause a demonstration and inflame the situation, which could piss the muslim crowds coming out of friday prayers off, and cause fresh clashes, and who would want that? So, instead of asking the activists what they are doing there, or even putting them on a train heading back to Egypt, the police of Nag3 Hamady chose to arrest them instead, figuring that detaining them for a couple of hours until the day is over would be the wisest thing to do. STUPID!

Next thing you know, you had a media storm on your hand, and lawyers were calling up the Police station by the droves, and journalists were demonstrating in Cairo, and the whole thing was getting out of hand. Realizing that they are the retards who arrested activists who came only in order to offer condolences in a symbolic gesture of national unity, the security forces decided that they needed to fix this before it gets out of hand. So, how would they fix it? Simple, keep them locked up over night, send a statement to the newspapers that you arrested them while they were attempting to riot and cause mayhem, and then release them the next day- Today- because they will be so tired from spending an entire day in your holding cells without food or water, that they will just go home. Media fallout? International pressure? Civil society condemnation? Let the government deal with that. What's important is that Nag3 Hamady is calm and stable for another day. That's all that matters. And surely this will have no repercussions on them on the local level at all, right? I mean, when the Christians see that not only is the police not interested in protecting them, not actively trying to bring their shooters to justice, beating the shit out of them every time they try to demonstrate , but are also arresting muslims and human rights activists who want to offer their condolences and pay their respect to the victims' families, surely they won't get mad about that. That's not adding insult to injury at all, you know?

Do I even have to say it?

S.T.U.P.I.D.

And here we are, a country whose so called national fabric is being ripped at the seams, and its leaders-political and religious- are unable to lead or even gauge their people any more. What's new here is how widespread the Christian anger is this time, and who its targeting : The Coptic Church. The Copts have had it with the church and its leaders, who want to play politics and make small gains by gambling with the livelihood of their followers. It's even happening on the top level, with NDP, twice-appointed by Mubarak, Coptic Christian MP Gorgette Qillini started attacking the governor of Qena and Father Korollos for lying to their people and trying to appease the government. Yes, you have one of very very few Christian MP's, who was appointed by the government, fighting with the Christian father of the church of the slain Christians and the Christian governor of the governorate they were killed in, and accusing them of being beholden to the government, while the general Christian population is watching, dumbfounded on how this has become a fight between the Christians, instead of uniting, and trying to start a serious national dialogue from the ashes of this horrific incident. But no, that would be smart, and we don't do that around here, do we?

I love this stupid country and its stupid people. I really really do.

I don’t care about Football.

(Dear American reader: by football I mean the real football. The one you call soccer? The one you used to practice as a child but then outgrew the moment you heard about actual contact sports? Yeah, that one!)

I couldn’t care less, to tell you the truth. I have no favorite team. I can;t get myself to watch games, and I am only interested if the game is the finals or the finals qualifiers game. That’s it. Why bother watching the whole movie? Just wait for the climax, I always say. And then join in the celebrations if we (whomever we is) win. In reality, I am more interested in the mayhem then in the game, and that has always been my prerogative. So when I tell you that I am super interested in Saturday’s game between Egypt and Algeria, please know that there will be at least riots involved. Maybe a lynching. It’s too early to tell.

The situation is simple and complex: It’s the final game in the worldcup qualifiers, and Egypt needs to defeat Algeria by 3 goals to qualify, and the final game is getting played here in Cairo. Ironically enough, this same exact situation happened to the tee 20 years ago, the last time we qualified in the worldcup. Egypt vs. Algeria, final game to be played in Cairo, also in November. But unlike the one 20 years ago, this one is going a wee bit crazy.

You see, here is the thing about Algerians: They are fuckin nuts. For real. Violence is their thing. Something is not right with those people in general, but especially when it comes to football. Whenever we played a game there in the past year, the fans , at the very least, will throw rocks and rockets at our players. And as if that wasn’t enough, some algerians burned the egyptian flag in the streets and starting making songs about what a bunch of sissies Egyptians are. Given that we are a country that worships football, and not big on being called sissies, even by crazy algerians, the egyptian people decided that they will escalate, and declare war back on Algeria. How is this war taking shape, you might ask? Well, methodically, actually:

• There is a football tradition of killing owls in order to jinx your opposing team. It has been relayed to me that an Owl holocaust was started last week and is continuing until this very moment.
• Tamer from the popular TV show el beit beitak went on TV a couple of days ago and informed the egyptian audiences of the Hotel the algerian team will be staying in, and urging the egyptian people to “go there and hang out” until the day of the game.

And then the Algerians started to retaliate:

• Algerian airlines has donated 3000 free tickets to hardcore algerian fans in order not to have their team stand by its lonesome against the cheering might of 80,000 egyptians.
• Algerian hackers hacked the egyptian football association webpage today, and put the Israeli flag on it (??!!!?).
• Algerian municipality workers have stopped the paperwork for an algerian girl getting married to an egyptian guy, telling her that she can come back for it after saturday’s game.

And then there is what happened today:

• Egyptians dying for a ticket to the Game attacked all ticket selling centers in droves today. The Elite Heliopolis Sporting club managed to secure a couple of thosunad tickets to sell to its members, only to have word of this reaching the egyptian population and having hundreds of egyptians storm into the private club to get their hands on tickets. 40 police cars were called to secure the facility. And there there is this picture of another ticket box office:
• The Bus carrying the Algerian team got attacked today, with egyptian fans reportedly attacking it by throwing rocks at them. And then this is where the story gets hazy: The Algerians claim that the rock throwing reached such a degree, that the windows chatters and 4 of their players got injured. The egyptian officials deny that any algerian players got injured, and some are even claiming that the algerians are making the entire thing up, with them breaking the glass of the bus themselves to set the egyptians up. There are videos here and here. You make up your own mind.

The game is on Saturday, which means there are still 48 hours to go during which at least 3000 angry Algerians will be gracing the streets of Cairo, which are already filled with crazed Egyptian fans. Something tells me this won’t end well, which is awesome news for me. I am hoping someone burns the stadium down. It’s been a while since we had a pretty fire, and I think the Algerians might just be the kind of people who will oblige me. In other news, I am totally parking my car in a private garage that day. Who the fuck knows what kind of crazy fucked up shit will happen then?

Ohh boy, can’t wait! Saturday just can’t come soon enough.

Oprah will end as a show, and come back as a NETWORK. Is there no God?

After an Israeli company won an award for making the best prepackaged falafel, a lebanese man is waging a crusade to declare the falafel as an arab property. And they wonder why no one takes them seriously!

A saudi TV channel launched a program that discusses issues of girls and female university students called the secrets of girl, with all three presenters wearing the full Niqab. That’s one way to solve their body image issues I guess!

The Egyptian government creates a code for ethical cell phone use. Heheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheehehehehehehehehehehehe. Sorry, the words Egyptian government and ethical should not be in the same universe together, let alone the same sentence.

One word: academize!

I haven’t written ever since it happened. Don’t know what to write. Anything I think of will sound contrived anyway. I mean, the fucker was arab, muslim and palestinian to boot. What’s there to say? It’s an isolated incident? It might never happen again? This doesn’t mean that everybody in the military who is arab or muslim will act this way? For real? Do I need to say this? What is there to say?

I can only think of two things actually: 1) My deepest condolences to the families of the victims , and 2) in the name of every arab or muslim that will now get screwed over because of your actions: FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE! I hope you never enjoy a single day of peace in this life or any next one!

*Updated*

A couple of months ago, I had a chance encounter with an old friend name Samuel Tadros, who also happens to be a liberal activist. We were always saying we were going to meet up, and finally, before he was heading to Georgetown for his postgraduate studies, we managed to meet at a cafe in Heliopolis called Fiji (They make banana gum flavored shisha. It’s fuckin awesome) for a chat. He told me back then that he was seriously disturbed by the current state of liberal activism in Egypt, and how it’s lead by anti-semetic people.

One example He gave me was Sekina Fouad, who is a writer and the VP of this new liberal party called the Democratic Front Party. Sekina originally is a socialist pan-arabist, who found no money in pan-arabism anymore, so decided to become one of the New Liberals that are a dime a dozen in cairo these days. Usually when an egyptian writer gets confronted about his or her anti-semitism, they always say that it’s not jews they hate, only Israelis. Luckily, Sekina’s writing left no doubt who she hated, with articles claiming Jewish Blood Libel myths, and other articles where she asks if Jews should be considered human. All the Nazi classics, basically. The thing is, the democratic front party is all but funded entirely by Friedrich Naumann, which is a Foundation funded by German money to support liberalism and liberal parties. So, besides the obvious problem of having a party VP spouting nazi talking points, you have german funding for it. And when Samuel confronted someone at Naumann’s Egypt’s office about it, that person told him “If we decide we won’t work with anyone who hates jews, then we probably won’t work in Egypt at all”. So, naturally, I encouraged him to expose the story, because at the very best, those people need to be exposed as frauds, and at the very least,  german tax payers would probably like to know that their money is supporting Nazi- talking points.

A couple of months later, Samuel did just that, in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. The piece he wrote with Amr Bargisi was devastating, for they detailed all the stuff that Sekina said, alongside with all the anti-semetic crap that Ayman Nour likes to write, on the eve of Liberal International, the biggest liberal parties conference to be hosted in Egypt, and an association that the democratic front party is vying to full join.

Consider the case of Sekina Fouad, a well-known journalist who also serves as the DFP's vice president. In an article published earlier this year, Ms. Fouad dismisses any distinction between Jews and Israelis, the reason for which is "the extremity of the doctrine of arrogance, distinctiveness and condescension [the Jews] set out from and seek to achieve by all means, and on top of which blood, killing, terrorizing and frightening."

She corroborates this argument with an alleged statement by "President" Benjamin Franklin, asking Americans to expel Jews since they are "like locusts, never to get on a green land without leaving it deserted and barren." Needless to say, Franklin never made any such statement.

Nor is Ms. Fouad some kind of outlier. Take Ayman Nour, who contested the 2005 presidential election under the banner of his own party and was subsequently jailed for nearly four years.

Immediately after his release earlier this year, he attended a celebration organized by opposition groups—including the Muslim Brotherhood—in the northern city of Port Said, commemorating "the first battalion of volunteers from the Egyptian People setting off to fight the Jews in 1948." The word "Jews" was stressed in bolded black lettering on the otherwise blue and red banner hanging above the conference panel. Yet far from trying to distance himself from that message, Mr. Nour got into the spirit of the conference, talking about "the value of standing up to this enemy, behind which lies all evils, conspiracies and threats that are spawned against Egypt."

The article became the talk of the conference, with both the DFP and Ayman Nour running to dispel the accusations. So Nour, who was supposed to take his first trip to Washington of 5 years in 2 days, issued a prompt response in english, denying being an Anti-Semite, and stated that while he is totally against Israeli military excursions, he is very supportive of the peace process, and against any calls for harm against Israel.

Furthermore, my statements referred specifically to Israel's conduct during the Gaza war, which in my opinion was highly objectionable.

I was distraught over the excessive loss of civilian life in Gaza, and I regret that my comments were expressed in a way that was unclear and that may have understandably offended.

Anyone examining my record can easily discern that I have always supported and upheld Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, and have strongly opposed calls of aggression against Israel.

Nice, no? But when Egyptian newspapers caught a wind of this, they were like : “what do You mean you are against calls of aggression against Israel?”, and Nour, like the two-faced idiot that he is, forgot that there is such a thing called the internet, or that there are egyptian journalists who read english, and denied completely having said that, and went as far as saying the the editors at the Wall Street Journal made those statements up, because he never said it. So, the nice people at Youm 7 newspaper, published his accusations against the WSJ alongside a screenshot of his op-ed, you know, to ensure that the world sees his duplicity for what it really is.

As for Sekina, well, not every story has a happy ending. The Swedish delegation confronted the DFP about Sekina’s writings, to which she used the cliche’d response of “but I meant the Israelis, not the Jews”, and then brazenly accused the other parties of not being true to liberalism if they use her own anti-semetic articles to accuse her of being anti-semetic. And you know what? It amazingly  fuckin worked. The LI conference all voted for admitting the DFP into their association, with the exception of the swedish delegation, who seem to be the only delegation with half a brain and some principles. Kudos to Sweden, boo to the rest of the fuckin world! And while we are at it, let me take this moment to remind you that those are the people who present themselves as the viable alternative to the Islamists and the egyptian leftists.

No wonder we are fucked!

Update: In a bizzare twist in a story that keeps getting more..ehh..bizzare, while Ayman continues to deny that the op-ed sent to the WSJ is the real Op-ed and was tamperd with by the evil editor who wants to ruin him in Egypt, he also forgot that he uploaded it on his account on the Bikya Masr website, with the refrence to rejecting calls of agression towards Israel. You know, the WSJ is walking away smelling like roses on this one. Please WSJ, sue him. It would be awesome!

Walking around the streets of downtown Cairo recently is like a full-blown conscious self-imposed session of De Ja-vu. You see, ladies and gentlemen, we might have parliamentary elections and a presidential elections all wrapped up by next year, which means that after 3 years of no work, old activists and bloggers are starting to come out of their hiding places to start playing again on the streets of Cairo. Oh Fun.

And while it’s always good to see old friends and enemies alike (god knows old enemies have a weird habit of becoming acquaintances after a while), I have to say that I wish it was under better circumstances. The egyptian political scene is at an all time low, with all the players either sidelined (see Islamists, also leftists), or completely distracted (see liberals) with minutia and fighting over foreign funds. And then there are the pretend players, and those are the worst. The Pretenders list includes the following:

1) Kefaya: The movement is now a website. No more, no less. Simply a place to give George Ishac and AbdelHalim Qandil an affiliation to put next to their names. That is it. There is nobody there, and no one believes in them anymore, because after 5 years on the scene they still haven’t come up with a single program or plan that makes sense that would place it as an alternative to the government. So far it’s: Mubarak is bad, and oh yeah, so is Israel. Fantabolous, no?

2) 6th of April Youth: Ahh, the movement that never was, which is still a movement because fuckin Ayman Nour decided to have his marriage implode the same day they were being exposed nationwide as a fraud (over an affair with the ex-leader of 6 of april, of all people), which caused them to become a B-news item, and to continue to operate, instead of becoming completely discredited, once and for all.  Enter a certain american organization, whose last name rhymes with Mouse, and whose Program Officer for the middle east needs any kind of achievement to placate his bosses. So he starts telling his american bosses that 6th of April are a real movement, that they started protests, and that they are not a made-up joke or PR stunt, or people who stole the work of real activists and claimed it as their own, and they start funding them and promoting them. How awesome is civil society, really?

3) Ayman Nour: The current Giant Asshole. People, someone should get a hold of Ayman Nour and tell him that the 2005 elections are over. For real. He is still running. You would think Ayman, if he was truly a smart politician, would work on rebuilding his party, you know, for the 2010 parliamentary elections, so that he would end up with 10 or 20 seats and be relevant again or something. But noo, not Ayman. Ayman wants to debate Gamal Mubarak for the election, an election that is 1) 2 years away, 2) where Gamal is not known to be the candidate yet and 3) Ayman can’t even participate in legally. I know he is trying to appear relevant, but relevant and crazy are two different things unfortunately, and he is accomplishing the latter quite brilliantly.

And this is where things are at right now. A fucking lake of shit. And god knows I didn’t want to ever come back to it again. The crooks and liars of the egyptian opposition make me want to support the crooks and liars of the government: At least they are stealing real money…not stabbing each other in the back or making imaginary movements for a silly fund from NED or MEPI or USAID or whatever other acronym that stands for US money that should probably stay in the US these days. But see, they are all back, which means that I have to come back again, because really, it just ain’t the same without me. Don’t you think?

Game on, bitches!

The Egyptian Parliament is in uproar, the newspapers can’t seem to stop talking about the impending crisis, which spells doom and gloom to the Egyptian society. But what is the issue that is uniting the Egyptian opposition and the government, and is so urgent that it took not one, but two session of the parliament to discuss? Unemployment? Food Riots? Swineflu? The Jooz, again? No, the answer is far more sinister than that, and it even has a sinister Japanese sounding name to accompany it: GIGIMO. And ladies and gentlemen, it’s a hymen.

Proving one more time that when it comes to Muslim women, it’s what’s between their legs, Egypt is simmering over a Chinese device that fakes female virginity. The device is reportedly available in Syria for $15 and is quite popular. No one knows if the device is being sold in Egypt yet, but just the mere thought of a device, which is said to release liquid imitating blood, allowing a woman to fake virginity on her wedding night, has driven the conservative society crazy.

One Egyptian Muslim scholar demanded that people who bring the device into the country should face the death penalty, and The Muslim Brotherhood wants the kit banned on grounds it will encourage promiscuity. The Muslim Brotherhood, it seems, believes that Egyptian girls are super sluts who are only stopped from sleeping with anyone they meet in the street by their tiny hymens. Anal sex, on the other hand, is still Kosher, and encouraged.

The crazy fuckheads (my pet name for misogynists everywhere) are not content that their ideology has put headscarves on the heads of 90 per cent of Egyptian women. Now it’s the horror of uncertainty about that “good girl” they marry: “What if someone else was there first? What if she knows how small my Penis really is?”, they seem to ask. They used to be able to kill any girl who was found without a hymen, and now they might never get to kill another girl again. The thought of that is clearly upsetting to them.

This obsession with virginity is both shallow and deadly. And you know what? People in Egypt are having sex outside of marriage, as they do everywhere. Never mind that 25% of all women are born without hymens either, or that Hymen reconstruction surgery is still an option for sexually active women who could afford it. But the danger of GIGIMO is its utter cheapness. Honor, it seems, was only worth 15 dollars at the end of the day.

Despite all of this, we at the Sandmonkey blog are supporting the effort started by Egyptian politicians to ban the fake hymens, as long as they ban real hymens with them. We would like a consistent hymen-banning policy, goddamn it. Or we would also like to have the males’ anal virginity to be inspected on the wedding night, with the wedding canceled and the groom killed if it has been found that he has experienced the pleasures of having his Hershey highway ridden. We would find it so so interesting to see how many such male honor killings would take place until men start decrying the whole thing as barbaric. Wouldn’t you?

As far back as I can remember I’ve had this dream. Not much anymore, but for a while I had it all the time. There’s people on a rollercoaster and they’re having the time of their lives, and it’s loud and crashing, and there’s the booming of the ocean and the acoustics of the wind, and they’re screaming with their hands in the air, and the thing that they don’t know is that the tracks stop, somewhere at a crest, just gap into nothing, and they’re hurtling toward it. They think that they’re safe but they’re not safe.

And usually the dream gets bogged down in bureaucratic detail, trying to mobilize a team to somehow solve this problem, all the futile possible ways we could save them. Dream logic; leadership dreams. Maybe if they all raised their arms at the same counterintuitive time, at the bottom of the hill maybe, it would provide some kind of drag. Maybe if they all unlatched their harnesses at the same moment, if they somehow all knew to do it at the same time, like in a football wave, if they could do this as they were launching into space, and off the tracks altogether, they would take flight, and we could… catch them, somehow. Everyone would be safe.

Karen Armstrong wrote one of my favorite books of all time, the elegant and accessible “A History Of God”. It’s brilliant, I’ve read it lots of times. In 2000, she wrote a sort of follow-up called “The Battle For God”, about fundamentalism in the new millennium.

The idea, the rationale as such, is pretty simple. We find ourselves in a complex, degenerate post-God secular world; there are no rules, the center doesn’t hold, nobody’s watching you or judging you. Some thrive; I thrive. But it’s nervous: you’re looking into an existential abyss, or you’re standing in the middle of Sodom trying to avoid eye contact, or you’re getting turned on and about to do something really stupid. Those are the main things. Fundamentalism is sort of like all of those things at once. Let me elaborate

What’s most amazing about the millennial fundamentalists, which every single religion has, is their basic intent on going “back to basics” in some fashion, while completely ignoring the fact that there aren’t actually any “basics” to go back to. The stuff they want to accomplish, for all of us, the walls they want where a body meets a body, the rules be which we must abide, never actually existed. They’re fantasies about control, mental lockdown, revisions to decisions that no moment can erase. Every single fundamentalism is synthetic, reaching backwards for an imaginary grace.

Fundamentalism reaches past all that nonsense and chaos and into a primordial world where men were men and women weren’t, where no decisions ever had to be made, where every single option was laid out ahead of time by a firm but loving God, where families meant a certain thing and sex meant a certain thing, and everything was easy except temptation. But that’s obviously a crock. You can’t honestly tell me there was ever a time when human beings were less complex, less passionate or afraid or unpredictable, less wonderful than they are now.

For me, all this was a revelation on the level of learning, as a kid, that Allah and JHVH and the christian God were the same thing: that all Big Three monotheisms worship the God of Abraham and don’t even bother hiding that fact. The idea that “fundamentalism” was a logically tortured appeal to a beautiful pure world that never existed, and that Al Qaeda and Juniper Creek are essentially parallel movements with the same agenda and arising from the same confusion and fear… Revelatory.

Things are confusing, lots of stuff coming at your face all the time. Sex keeps getting less and less kind, and we keep blaming more and more shit on our parents and our kids, and technology is overwhelming and even the hippest among us can sometimes feel like the world is changing so fast and flying by so carelessly without giving us more than a glimpse of itself, much less a place to grab hold. I can’t say they don’t have a point. But then, terrorists usually do. If they didn’t have something to say (even if it’s usually a crock of bullshit), they wouldn’t feel silenced, and they wouldn’t pull the shit they pull. They wouldn’t feel the need to scream so loudly that the whole world must listen.

For a lot of us, it’s enough to have self-control and to make good choices, and not get out of hand, or take part in what’s going on all around you. For others, the projected disarray is way too much to handle, and you start feeling like a rat in a cage as big as the world. Everywhere around you, the world is on fire, and everyone around you goes on like the world hasn’t ended. You’re on a roller coaster with everybody alive, headed for a gap, and nobody knows it but you: we’re all heading merrily toward our destruction, and we don’t even know it. We think that we’re safe but we’re not safe.

If you have that kind of information, if you know that the tracks run out and people are going to die, it’s not only your duty to use it, but your purpose on this earth. To be in the world, but not of it. To help, and to heal, and to save the world, and in so doing, save yourself. To do what’s necessary to fulfill your destiny: to love them, and take care of them, show them the glory of peace. To see your infinite mercy matched only by your power, and complete control. Isn’t that the definition of the righteous man? The saint? The martyr? All of them…Terrorists. To give up the right to walk in this world, for a duty that must be obeyed for our souls to stay intact, unbending.

If you saw the roller coaster heading toward the gap, if you were in the middle of that nightmare, wouldn’t you do anything to stop it?

Welcome to the War!

In case anyone needed another cautionary tale on why you shouldn't add your Boss on Facebook, well, here is a new one.

Speaking of Facebook, Here is CNN "reporting" on the 12 most annoying facebook types. Remember when CNN used to report actual news? Those were the days.

Science ponders Zombie attacks , and the scientist who ponders it is called Robert Smith? with a question mark in the end of Smith, in order to officially distinguish himself from his namesake who is the frontman of The Cure. Clearly a scholar, that guy! Oh, and by the way, according to the study, if Zombies attack, we will lose. Man, I didn't see that coming!

Men are now officially obselete!

Eelectric Cars are now officially cool!

Your dog humping your legs? Buy him a doggie sex doll . You have a female dog you say? And it humps your leg? You sure about this?

Oh, and lats but not least, if you ever pondered who, between Huxley and Orwell, was right about our future..well.. Huxley won!

Hope I provided y'all with enough distraction during your first day of fasting. Remember, the monkey loves you!

I know I have been gone around here, but I couldn't stop myself from being on twitter and facebook. I think I am going to start attending those meetings in the future. Anyone knows where the Cairo Chapter meets?

..and with it comes the once a year desire to get that Adam Sandler universal remote in Click. If only I can press fast forward for that one month…. sigh…

But on the other hand, it is the month to really explore hash and get yourself lung cancer from the redicilous amounts of Hookah you will be smoking, so, ehh, Win?

I kid Ramadan..I like you, despite your fascist tendencies. What's not to like about food and water deprivation, followed by gluttony interjected by short tempers and the non-existence of Alcohol anywhere? Also, psycho family obligations. YaY.

Well, to get you into the spirit of the season, let me greet you with this piece of news on the now officialy deceased Las Vegas of the Middle-east, DUBAI!

All female staff at
Dubai Bank, Muslim and non-Muslim, must wear a shailah (head scarf) and
abaya (black cloak covering the whole body) starting this Ramadan, Gulf News has learnt.

A memo sent to staff
on Thursday says the bank has decided that all Muslim and non-Muslim
female staff must wear a shailah and abaya.

A Dubai Bank official
who would not reveal his name said a memo was issued to this effect by
the human resources manager, informing employees that starting from the
first day of Ramadan all female employees must wear a shailah and abaya
regardless of their religion.

"Our bank is Islamic
and must follow Sharia in all respects, which will satisfy our
clients," he said. While the decision takes effect beginning first of
Ramadan, it has become a rule and part of the dress code for female
employees at all times.

Wohoow..and who decided this?

Gulf News has
learnt that the proposal on the dress code was made by the bank's Fatwa
and Sharia Supervisory Board in June and it was endorsed by the
management. A circular was then issued on Thursday.

The Fatwa and Sharia Supervisory Board's proposal, a copy of which has been obtained by Gulf News, says the abaya should not have any embroidery or decoration on it and must not be coloured.

Yes dahhling..we are going for bleek and depressing this season. Oppression is the new black. It will be fabulous.

Now, how do we enforce it?

It
says any female staff who does not adhere to this dress code should be
advised by the human resources department at the bank to follow it.

And if said staff member refused said advice?

If
the staff member insists on not abiding by the law then the matter
should be brought to the notice of the executive member of the Sharia
supervisory board who can decide upon action to be taken against that
staff.

There might be flogging involved.. or not..really depends on the Sharia Board. Isn't that awesome?

More of this please, and Ramadan Kareem everyone!

halloo….is anybody out there?

Let's try this thing again!

It's not slowing down!

Neither are photoshopped, by the way, unlike some people's rallies!

To help you get the full picture!

Amazing

The reality in Iran is not going to change because of
the elections. The world and we already know [Iranian President
Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. If the reformist candidate [Mir Hossein] Mousavi
had won, Israel would have had a more serious problem because it would
need to explain to the world the danger of the Iranian threat, since
Mousavi is perceived internationally arena as a moderate element … 

Nice..

Hey, jewish zionist conspiracy people, wanna circulate this please? Write it this way: Najad is the preferred Mossad candidate, says head of Mossad. Be useful for once!

Rumors are circulating of Hamas members used to crack down on protesters as well. Hmm…

About fuckin time!

If you don't already. I am mostly there!