Annalysis

The Story of Stuff

2010-07-01T14:51:00.000-07:00

LibraryThing Review Link:http://www.librarything.com/work/9037676/reviews/61133627I picked this book up in a mall. I had not seen the YouTube video that the author had made prior to publishing the book, but I'd heard of it. I leafed through it and was caught up in reading about computer metals and how they are produced, used, and disposed of, when I realized I needed to leave. I bought the book.I

Hoffmania!

2009-07-02T13:35:00.001-07:00

I just got done reading a great book by the fabulous teller of tales, E.T.A. Hoffman: The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr. Below is my review, which I also posted to Library Thing:When I was in college, majoring in Spanish literature, I had to read several works and poems that used a style I’d call “fierce satire.” They were, not to put too fine a point on it, mean. There were two Spanish

Hello - I'm back!

2009-04-07T11:43:00.000-07:00

It's been forever since I have used this blog. I will post a longer story later, but for now I am just glad to be back on Blogger. It took me forever to remember how to sign in!

Petition on Muslim Women's Dress

2006-12-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

I am very pleased to report an initiative started by some Muslim women I am acquainted with over the Internet - a petition stating that we would like other people to basically leave us alone to dress how we choose. As the three or four readers of this blog know, this is already my position, so I was happy to sign (I was the third person!) and if anyone happens to hear of it first here, please

Is there a quiz on how unserious you are because of the number of quizzes you post?

2006-11-30T12:33:00.000-08:00

OK, I promise the next post is going to actually be a piece of writing by me.Really.I just could not resist this one (via Eerie at Aqoul): ....Loveable, yes, yes, cuddly... Oh, that's me to a T! /Peter Ustinov's Prince John

I am a Neurotic Reader too....

2006-11-29T17:18:00.000-08:00

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm Book Snob Literate Good Citizen Non-Reader Fad Reader What Kind of Reader Are You?Create Your Own Quiz

An E-mail from a Muslim Man

2006-11-22T11:46:00.000-08:00

Periodically, I get involved in the everlasting discussions about what Muslim women wear or don't wear or should wear or should not wear. My position is very simple. We are adults. Leave us alone. That message is for everyone. Liberals who hate the "veil." Muslims who hate to see women showing their hair. Non-Muslim women who want us to look and act more like them. Non-Muslim men who make

I Am A Neurotic Assumption Questioner; Is There a 12-Step Program for This?

2006-11-10T11:39:00.000-08:00

For several years, I taught management training workshops in Egypt for AMIDEAST. I had a favorite workshop, Creative Problem Solving.The Creative Problem Solving workshop introduces involving various problem-solving techniques and tools to participants. One of them is the very interesting and eye-opening exercise of "questioning assumptions". I always spent a lot of time on it because trainees

No Architects Were Killed or Maimed in the Making of this Masterpiece

2006-10-29T17:31:00.000-08:00

I did a long post about the Taj Mahal earlier today but Blogger went down and it got lost. This is the first time that ever happened to me. Anyhow, it's hard to get the energy to type the whole thing again. In a nutshell, I had heard from my kids, who had learned it in their Islamic history classes, that the guy who had the Taj Mahaj built, Shah Jahan, a Moghul emperor, killed the architect

Air Force Mission Statement

2006-10-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

One of the first things I did when moving to Portland was to get a PO box (as I moved here without a job and assumed I would be moving around a fair amount for the next couple of years). The box is in a "Post Net" store in a mall. Next to it is the local recruiting office for the military.As I was walking by the recruiting office I noticed a sign in the window entitled "Air Force Mission

Middle East imperial history

2006-10-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

I have moved to the US and have been offline for the past several months. I will try to start blogging again.I found this map program to be really interesting (and educational).

Shab Khaled does India

2006-10-08T11:54:00.000-07:00

A Poem By Yasser

2006-03-22T05:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Egyptian Mother's Day. My son, who is in the first year of high school and is 15 years old, wrote me a poem. I asked him if I could post it at the blog and he said this was OK. As you can see, although it may not be Shakespeare, from the rhythm and scanning and all that stuff point of view, it has the advantage of being a pretty honest view of his relationship with me. Although

A Mea Culpa

2006-03-12T03:05:00.000-08:00

Well, I am re-reading some Idries Shah books in order to do a really super good essay on him. It's daunting. I also have a lot of thoughts on the "Danish Cartoon Controversy" that, now that it has quieted down, I wanted to put down in this space and elicit some discussion on. But, I am going crazy at work and home, so all of these promised goodies are currently still figments of my imagination

Chomsky and Mistakes

2006-03-12T02:07:00.000-08:00

Mark Alexander asked me in the last post about Chomsky whether he had ever admitted to a mistake, and raised the bar extremely high on what he considered a legitimate example: It had to be when he was grown, it had to be something he had advocated passionately, and a bunch of other qualifiers.So I decided that given that I don't know Chomsky personally and most of what I have read by him are

Good Writers 2: Noam Chomsky

2006-02-01T10:47:00.000-08:00

Now, Noam is, in a lot of ways, like Richard Mitchell. I think this may be because he is a linguist.Everyone who knows of Noam Chomsky as a public figure is vaguely aware that he is a linguist. I actually have a linguistics degree – in foreign language literature. Don’t ask me how that can be. Ask the university. I really do have a Bachelor of Science in Language Arts and my major was French

Good Writers: Richard Mitchell

2006-01-29T11:21:00.000-08:00

Shortly after I wrote the “good writing as writing” post, Arthur disappeared from the Internet again. After that, I tried to get up the willpower to write the promised series, and kept coming up short. Every day I would think about posting and decide against it. I’d read other sites that I love and tell myself that I really don’t have anything important enough to add, and then I got very busy

Good writing - as writing

2005-11-08T03:56:00.000-08:00

Arthur Silber, who I have mentioned before, has started a new blog, Once Upon a Time. He commented in a recent post on his personal situation,Moreover, and an aspect of this that deeply disheartens me, there is almost no appreciation for decent writing as writing anywhere among blogs or among blog readers. (I'm obviously referring to blogs that focus on culture and politics. I'm aware there is

The Homework Issue - In Egypt

2005-10-23T23:48:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful morning - checking one of my favorite news blogs, Steve Gilliard's News Blog, and finding this article about homework in the US. The mother is really upset that her 7 year old has an hour of homework a night - and that it is homework in which parents are supposed to "help" (she listed a project in which you could tell the parent was going to do everything). I laughed at the

Yom Kippur/10 Ramadan Commemoration

2005-10-13T03:54:00.000-07:00

This year, I notice that the 10th of Ramadan (today) is also Yom Kippur (according to an announcement from Michael Lerner that I received yesterday).This apparently happens every 32 years or so. The last time it happened was at the very beginning of the 1973 war in the Middle East. The war of 1973 is still known to Israelis as the Yom Kippur war, while to Arabs it is remembered by the date of

The Teacher and his Captive Audience

2005-10-03T22:46:00.000-07:00

I am a firm believer in the separation of religion and state and in secular education. However, I live in a country (Egypt) with a national religion (Islam, with Christianity recognized as the religion of some citizens), which does not have such a separation as a core value. Therefore, religion is a subject taught officially in all schools here. Muslim kids are taught Islam and Christian kids

Happy Happy Ramadan

2005-10-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

It's Ramadan 1426! Blessings and easy fasting to all who observe it. Here in Egypt - as usual - everyone is happy about starting Ramadan observances and many are not only fasting but doing extra prayers and visiting the mosque more often and other "extra" religious observances. As for me, I'm just trying to maintain the religious observances that are required, and to not be grumpy while going

Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-07T05:04:00.000-07:00

I am completely numb about the horror of the hurricane and its aftermath. I am not very good at articulating my feelings when they are very overpowering, so I prefer to read and hear others rather than share my impressions, which are very similar to other people's (anger, horror, tears). Please donate to the Red Cross if you have not already. I hope that as a result of this, FEMA gets its

An Article about US Public Diplomacy

2005-09-07T04:47:00.000-07:00

Often on lists that I belong to, I comment on articles that were sent to the list. Recently one was sent regarding the new Bush Administration "Public Diplomacy initiatives" supposedly undertaken by their relatively new appointee to the Undersecretary of State Department for Public Diplomacy position, famed campaign person and writer of Bush biographies, Karen Hughes. The article really

Plato's Cave

2005-08-18T02:32:00.000-07:00

I was cruising around on the Internet today and spent some time looking at science-oriented sites that I enjoy reading. My grasp of science is not high, because I did not take very many science classes in high school and did not *have* to take any hard science courses in college, and therefore chose to take courses that would give me credits in my double major and minor fields (French Language/

The Holy Grail Quiz

2005-08-13T23:54:00.000-07:00

Too many serious posts these days so I was very happy to get the idea to take this and jazz up this site a little.No surprises there. Mark of Witnit was, of course, God. I was, of course, Dennis the Peasant. This was predictable if you are one of the so-small-as-to-be-nonexistant group of readers who reads both of us regularly.The test was fun, but totally easy to fix if you have seen the

Why is Honesty Brutal?

2005-08-10T02:46:00.000-07:00

I got a very kind note from Arthur Silber after writing the previous post. In it, he wondered why we see honesty as being "brutal." He mentioned that he, too, uses this phrase, but isn't there something strange about seeing truth as being violent?I agree with him that it goes back to the Alice Miller theories he discusses (go to his blog to read up on these and come back here when you are done!

Arthur Silber, Great Writer on the Internet

2005-08-01T23:54:00.000-07:00

I plan to start a regular feature on this blog highlighting other, better, blogs in case there is anyone who, by some weird stroke of luck/lightning, happens by here and has not heard of them. For the past year or so I have been in the habit of checking The Light of Reason blog religiously every day. Its owner, Arthur Silber, is a tremendously articulate and brutally honest writer. He has

Back in Cairo from the US

2005-08-01T23:46:00.000-07:00

I only have scattered impressions at this point:1. The stores are so big it is scary. There is so much stuff yet it is so alike. I do not like the size because I do not like having to take so much time locating the right aisle to find what I want and get out of the store. I had never gone to a Target before and found the one in Cleveland Heights, Ohio particularly intimidating. I visited no

Visiting my Country of Origin (The US)

2005-07-06T06:16:00.000-07:00

For the first time in several years, I am taking my two teenagers to the US for a visit. I have not been back since 2001, while they have not been back since 1998. It should be very interesting, to say the least. I hope to post while back there to give some idea of differences and insights I have, but on the other hand, it's a vacation and I am not all that insightful except on rare occasions.

The 18th Century Liberals

2005-07-05T22:07:00.000-07:00

On the 4th of July, you usually have a spate of articles discussing the Founders of the US, people that Americans all learned about as children. Most of us admire them and believe that we take them as role models. I have to admit I find their writings stirring and powerful. I love the Declaration of Independence just for its rhetorical strength. It's more like a religious document to me than

Metaphor

2005-06-12T00:51:00.000-07:00

A metaphor is the use of something to represent something else. Metaphors are powerful in language and in visual representation, and therefore quite popular. In Arabic poetry, the use of metaphor is very high "so and so was a lion" and that sort of thing.Sometimes metaphors are not only used because they are powerful but because there is a social convention against discussing something or other

Public Shame for Sex Offenders

2005-06-09T04:39:00.000-07:00

Below, I posted on the issue of Medicaid coverage of prescription drugs in the US, because I had not been aware that sexual dysfunction drugs like Viagra were covered by this very limited and minimal governmental insurance program for poor people. It just seemed to me to be a very weird priority to use such a limited program to cover something that was not, by any stretch of the imagination,

Help, I have been tagged by a meme. What a first.

2005-06-05T23:59:00.000-07:00

I can't believe this, but that's what you get for commenting on other people's sites! Thanks a lot Corpy.Apparently, this one is about books. That's good. I am all about books. Usually they seem to be about things that are out of my league like IPod preferences or something like that.Total number of books owned: I have absolutely no idea - about 500 or 600 I guess. In one of my many moves, I

Medicaid and Viagra - I am Confused in Cairo Again...

2005-05-25T00:48:00.000-07:00

Recently many blogs have referred to a study done in the state of New York showing that many convicted sex offenders were able to get Medicaid reimbursements to buy Viagra. People thought this was really shocking. Both liberals, especially feminist ones, and conservatives, quoted it. I guess this is one single issue where I (normally the most liberal person I know) really have a conservative

Star Wars - What Character are You?

2005-05-22T01:17:00.000-07:00

I found this quiz funnier than most. I tried consciously to be a Jedi - as they are kind of like Sufis and I would love to be one. When you answer questions purposely to get to a certain result, it usually ends up turning out. (I should create a test called "what kind of test taker are you?" I am Qui-Gon Jinn. (I was actually hoping for Obi-Wan.)

A Sound Drubbing

2005-05-19T06:04:00.000-07:00

I just noticed something that should have been obvious to me long ago - the Arabic word for "beat or hit" is "d-r-b" (that's the root) and when it is conjugated it sounds a lot like the word "drub" in English, an archaic word meaning.... "to beat or hit." Weird. I wonder if there is any linguistic connection besides mere coincidence? However, I note that the archaic English "drub" was used

Honor Killings of Women- Lying about them in order to save them

2005-05-09T01:41:00.000-07:00

I am a member of several discussion lists, one of which is concerned with women and Islam. Recently someone there posted a review of a book about "honor" crimes committed against women in the West Bank. For those interested in the review, it skewers the book, marketed as a true story by a woman who underwent horrible torture and mistreatment, as being basically completely made up. The evidence

I Am Quitting the Mind Games with Rush Series (for now)

2005-05-05T05:13:00.000-07:00

I have thought a lot about this exercise I started, analyzing the transcript of a Rush show from an outside perspective. I decided that Mark was right. As I am critiquing Rush for oversimplifying a person, yet I am evaluating his views based on this single transcript, and according to Mark, Rush himself thinks you should not judge him until you have listened to 30 hours of him. I have no time

Seismology Thriller Writing

2005-05-05T05:04:00.000-07:00

I love the thriller as a genre. I think it is very instructive to see the technique good thriller writers use to keep your suspense mounting and keep you from closing the book. Right now, I am reading an older thriller,The Fourth Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders, which is quite entertaining, though the male/female interplay sounds very stilted to me. I have very high standards for thrillers and

Silly Quiz of the Week

2005-05-03T23:55:00.000-07:00

I thought it sounded funny and bet I could beat all the liberal bloggers for "liberalness" and non-republicanness, and I have, I think. (I bet this will really disqualify me from commenting on Rush Limbaugh according to most. It clearly shows I am pretty darned one-sided.)I am:-6%Republican."You're a damn Commie! Where's Tailgunner Joe when we need him?"Are You A

Mind Games with Rush, Part 3

2005-04-28T04:30:00.000-07:00

After yesterday's post, I thought a lot about how I can evaluate the rest of this transcript fairly without going back and reading original articles about the Churchill thing. Also, the original Churchill article itself. So I spent quite a bit of time doing that.Then I read this transcript again. And I had some general thoughts on this experience and what it is turning into.It strikes me, at

Mind Games with Rush, Part 2

2005-04-27T05:20:00.000-07:00

OK, I am now ready to go through the first part of this transcript."A University of Colorado professor..." How about this? How about this story on the heels of Senator Kennedy's speech yesterday at Johns Hopkins? The American left is just something!"It is too bad i have no idea of the context. I think the first point to be gained here is that a liberal person who does not listen to this guy

What gender is your brain?

2005-04-27T05:07:00.000-07:00

OK, I have to preface this with saying that I must be the only person who always gets irritated by quizzes like this. Because often they give you two choices that are by no means mutually exclusive but you must treat them as so. This maddens me. How can I make a "either or" statement on whether I discuss family and personal stuff with friends, or politics? Ever heard of "both about equally"

Teaching Science and Sex Ed in Egypt, Part 2

2005-04-18T02:49:00.000-07:00

So back to my son's science textbook. My son is in "Third Preparatory" which is the Egyptian equivalent of 8th grade.The section on "The Reproductive System" in the science textbook includes diagrams of the internal body parts of the male and female human reproductive systems, as well as the reproductive system of some sort of plant (I am writing this from memory).Then, there is an abrupt segue

Mind Games with Rush, Part 1

2005-04-18T02:32:00.000-07:00

I am following, with great interest, WitNit Mark Alexander's series on the mind and how it works. The latest edition of it, called "The Pygmalian Effect" is exhorting people to realize that we often evaluate what other people say based on preexisting biases we have towards those people. Mark's example is Rush Limbaugh, the radio personality. He says that liberals can't listen to him properly as

Favorite Poem for National Poetry Month

2005-04-14T01:35:00.000-07:00

For National Poetry Month I want to post my all-time favorite poem, which is by e. e. cummings. I love cummings' poetry because of the way he plays with punctuation and spacing. I also love his metaphors and images. Also his irreverence for the conventional and corresponding deep reverence for real life and love and all that good stuff.somewhere i have never traveled,gladly beyondany

Teaching Science and Sex Ed in Egypt, Part 1

2005-04-13T04:15:00.000-07:00

Although I wanted to confine this website to language oriented posts, I think I'll cast the net a bit broader to include education issues - like my beloved guru the Underground Grammarian (Yes, she CAN be taught how to do god-damned links) who is online thanks to Mark Alexander of WitNit, and describe to all the religious people in the US what an education looks like in a country with a national

Another silly quiz from Leila

2005-03-20T05:04:00.000-08:00

This is supposed to be a blog about language, dammit! But I broke down and took the silly quiz that Leila told me about in the "sapphire" comments below. I guess i missed the Sufi bar by a question or two (the one I was hoping for) and I was a "Progressive Muslim."You are a PROGRESSIVE Muslim. You could be fromany sect, religious or not, and may haveleftist/activist tendencies. Anything goeswith

Torture- is it ever OK? What about for white collar crime?

2005-03-20T04:40:00.000-08:00

So I note that this guy named Volokh, who I hardly ever read, except when he is linked to by someone else, came out in favor of torture carried out by victims of some heinous murderer (which apparently is actually a form of punishment employed in Iran - who knew?).Now I sort of know what he means; there is a sort of visceral "Yesssss!" in the deepest parts of the lizard-brain ID section of the

Euphemisms

2005-03-16T05:48:00.000-08:00

I spent the last couple of days studying the Wannsee meeting. Why on earth does one do these things? Periodically, living in the Middle East and getting a lot of weirdness about Jews and their ills, I go and do some study on Nazism to get myself some clarity. Now I have a wonderful new supervisor who, finding that I was a Kenneth Branagh fan, got out her copy of the HBO dramatization of

Silly quizzes and their appeal

2005-03-16T05:44:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I think that procrastinators like myself should not be allowed any access to the Internet and its infinite products for wasting yet more time. Like, for example, the silly quizzes at Quizilla and other sites asking such irrelevant yet fascinating questions as "Which LOTR character are you?" Today I did one called "Which Precious Gem are You?" and the answer was:(Now let's see if this

Caught in a Lie

2005-03-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

In Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine, the main character discusses a friend, saying of him that if he were caught in a lie, this person would be low on his list of people he'd rather have been caught by. It struck me that this was a more honest statement than many I have seen, as implicit in his statement is the idea that he does, indeed, lie at times. If we are truly honest we know that we

A name with a (well, mostly) rich heritage....

2005-03-09T04:00:00.000-08:00

So you know if you have discovered this website from my posting name that I probably live in the Middle East (assuming I am not talking about Cairo, Illinois). I do indeed live here in Cairo, Egypt. And judging from my post on Locke I am probably American. Right again. Well, I also am the proud mother of two sons. One is 14 and one is turning 13 in April. They are tall, strong, healthy (

Simplification - of Locke?

2005-03-06T03:12:00.000-08:00

I recently heard about a project to modernize classical political philosophers (Hume and Locke were two of the names on the list). The reason given was that the "archaic" language usage in the originals, as well as the fact that they referred to other philosophers that the student "may not have heard of" created "obstacles" for students. It was funny to me, because I do not frankly remember

Something the World (Probably) Does Not Need

2005-03-06T02:27:00.000-08:00

Another blog. About language, like there are not several great ones such as Witnit, Language Log, the Underground Grammarian archives, etcetera. But this one is MINE. Why do I think I should write about language? I am not a linguist and have no higher degree. I just love language, reading and writing, and pontificating on educational topics, so decided to give myself a platform. (That is