Weekend News Roundup

The Weekend News Roundup is a bit lengthy this week. A few Cairo neighborhood pieces; Egypt's water shortage (and crocs); book reviews: one on a book mentioned previously, and others include two about India's Independence, comparing the decision to partition to what is happening in Iraq, with a mention of one of my favorite books, A Peace to End All Peace; then of course the censorship spot (my fave: "Innovative Approach To Censorship" of how a Saudi Sheikh can put the screws to a major British publishing company - I' d like to see him try that in the U.S.,) plus, the usual censorship march in some Middle East countires, and from Putin (I liken him to Darth Vader and his deathly neck pinch); and my newest pet peeve, the recent  U.S.wiretapping law. Phew!

Egypt Today Magazine has a section describing all the different neighborhoods of Cairo, including mine Welcome to the ‘Burbs

With all the perks of big city life — but without the noise, congestion and concrete of Mohandiseen — Maadi is a haven for suburbanites.

Then there's the commentary in Al-Ahram News about Gated communities, By Salama A Salama.

Luxury real estate is not the answer to our problems. If anything, it will heighten the sense of social injustice and political exclusion that is growing all around us. This new lifestyle can only worsen the situation where political extremism and political oppression combine to destroy the social fabric of our country. We need to have a strategy for investment. We need a strategy that takes into account the social and political repercussions of investment. We cannot let businessmen and contractors tell us how to live.

Under the "Book" section, US author offers simplistic, sincere view of Egypt, critiques a book of an expat's view of Cairo, somewhat dissing it since the book's author lived in Maadi. After reading the above commentary and World's Apart, below, I don't think Maadi is that far removed from the rest of Cairo. We're not "gated"; we don't have a golf, tennis, and pool club at our disposal; we do see beggars - mothers with infants begging for money for food (putting their pursed hands up to their mouths); we have continual brownouts and blackouts; but fortunately, so far, we've been lucky with the water situation (except in February when the Metro flooded); and we do have access to the Metro. We may be a "suburb" but in the States we'd be called an "inner ring suburb" meaning that we are just a step outside the "inner city." The next article describes the differences in how the rich and poor have been dealing with the recent water shortage currently going on here in Egypt, Worlds apart

Residents of Daqahliya fought each other with sticks and stones to fill their water containers last week in scenes which, say the residents of one village, grow increasingly chaotic as the water shortage drags on.

A world away, in Qatamiya Heights, one of Cairo's many new up-market suburbs, residents were upset when water began to trickle from their taps. Then it was cut completely. But unlike the villages in Daqahliya water did not need to be trucked in. Instead residents headed for the supermarkets, buying box after box of bottled water. Maged Raouf, who has just moved into the area, has sent his children to stay at a relative's house until the water returns. "I can't possibly continue to pay this much for bottled water every time I have a shower". The facilities at his gym, he says, have become his de facto bathroom for the time being.

And, in Only in Egypt! a rather unfortunate result of the water shortage.

CAIRO -- A regularly updated collection of weird and whacky news items from Egypt.

Morning shower soils employee's reputation

EGYPT'S RELENTLESS summer heat and water shortages recently proved too hot to handle for one hapless, hygiene-conscious employee.

A 27-year-old man whose un-air-conditioned home's water supply was often erratic, making bathing a rare luxury, had made it a habit of reaching his work premises early in the morning, so as to avail himself of the on-site showers.

However, on one such occasion, while enjoying a refreshing soap-and-lather, the man realized he had left some other bath essentials in his work desk. Hoping to grab them and return unnoticed to complete his wash, he set forth frothy-but-otherwise-unadorned on his quest.

Unfortunately for the would-be bather, his boss had opted for an early start that morning, too, and was not amused to see his nude employee fumbling for bath oils in the middle of the office space.

The employee was docked five days wages from his total salary, and an official investigation into the affair was ordered by his superior. (Al Ahram)

BOOKS:
Against the Current
By LISA FUGARD
Published: August 5, 2007

In 1998, Rosemary Mahoney set out to row the Nile on her own.

Mahoney rows from Aswan to Edfu — a three-day journey — in Amr’s boat with Amr following in his felucca. She then takes a taxi to Luxor, where mobs of Europeans soak up the sun in skimpy attire and young Egyptian men work as gigolos. The inevitable conversations about sex — with Ahmed, a male prostitute, and Adel, a lawyer — are surreal, lurid and terribly sad. The freedom of being able to talk to a Western woman in an open way soon dissipates, and we see men who are frustrated and bored, struggling against the strictures of Islamic culture.

FIRST CHAPTER
‘Down the Nile’

“[T]hough in Egypt the assumption of the veil at puberty was officially a matter of individual choice, many Egyptian women wore the hijab . . .”

US author offers simplistic, sincere view of Egypt

What also discredits some of her remarks is that she lived the Cairo's Maadi neighborhood, where a lot of Westerners isolate themselves. Indeed, many of them find it similar to Washington, DC - an observation Eck, herself, makes. This limits the reader to seeing only one of Egypt's many faces, whereas the book aims to cover Egyptian society in its entirety.

Many Westerners in Egypt, or "expats," as Eck calls them, don't move around a lot, let alone socialize, outside Maadi. They live in a Western community in a Westernized neighborhood, as if they had brought the West with them to Egypt. This, in turn, keeps them from experiencing true Egyptian society and culture, and this was a defect in the memoir. Eck mainly concentrates on her life in Maadi, where she spent most of her stay, outside of a few months in Alexandria.

Nonetheless, from her Maadi base, Eck still offers valuable insight into the "expat" community she mingled with: "Expat women lead interesting lives. Since most have young children, they do volunteer work, ride, go out to lunch, shop, and take golf lessons while their children are in school ... Some [expat] women have their own car and driver. Everyone seems to have a maid at least three times per week. Others have a nanny and/or a cook. If they live in a villa rather than an apartment, they may have a gardener, and their own security guards or bawwab."

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Published: August 10, 2007

In this stunning memoir, Ms. Lagnado gives us a deeply affecting portrait of her family and its journey from wartime Cairo to the New World.

In “The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit” Ms. Lagnado — an investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal — gives us a deeply affecting portrait of her family and its journey from wartime Cairo to the New World. Like André Aciman in his now classic memoir, “Out of Egypt” (1994), she conjures a vanished world with elegiac ardor and uncommon grace, and like Mr. Aciman she calculates the emotional costs of exile with an unsentimental but forgiving eye. This is not simply the story of a well-to-do family’s loss of its home, its privileges and its identity. It is a story about how exile indelibly shapes people’s views of the world, a story about the mathematics of familial love and the wages of memory and time.

FIRST CHAPTER

“On the first Thursday night of every month . . . Om Kalsoum, the Nightingale of the Nile, the greatest singer Egypt had ever known, broadcast live from a theater in the Ezbekeya section . . .”

EXIT WOUNDS
The legacy of Indian partition.
by Pankaj Mishra

In the nineteen-twenties and thirties, Churchill had been loudest among the reactionaries who were determined not to lose India, “the jewel in the crown,” and, as Prime Minister during the Second World War, he tried every tactic to thwart Indian independence. “I hate Indians,” he declared. “They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” He had a special animus for Gandhi, describing him as a “rascal” and a “half-naked” “fakir.” (In a letter to Churchill, Gandhi took the latter as a compliment, claiming that he was striving for even greater renunciation.) According to his own Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery, Churchill knew “as much of the Indian problem as George III did of the American colonies.”

Remembering Partition

The parallels with contemporary Iraq are far from exact. The British Empire ruled India for nearly a century and, at the end, drew the boundaries that spawned decades of conflict; they should have felt an obligation to keep the place from collapsing before they departed. India was also a real country before the British colonized it, whereas Iraq was a colonial contrivance from the outset. (For the amazing story of how the British invented Iraq, and messed up the Middle East for all time to boot, see David Fromkin's A Peace To End All Peace.)

MUSLIMS IN AMERICA:
American Muslims Reimagined

Why comics? "I love the medium." Wilson responds. "I can't say enough good things about it. I call it 'the beautiful medium' because it's the only genre of storytelling in which the past, present and future are available to the reader as one image--I make use of that in Cairo, a novel about five very disparate characters and a genie whose stories are interwoven against the backdrop of modern-day Cairo. Outsiders is more overtly political of the two, because it deals with the hotly contested Transboundary Aquifer System in the northern Sahara."

Universities Install Footbaths to Benefit Muslims, and Not Everyone Is Pleased

By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: August 7, 2007

As the nation’s Muslim population grows, issues of religious accommodation are becoming more common, and more complicated.

Nationwide, more than a dozen universities have footbaths, many installed in new buildings. On some campuses, like George Mason University in Virginia, and Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Mich., there was no outcry. At Eastern Michigan, even some Muslim students were surprised by the appearance of the footbath — a single spigot delivering 45 seconds of water — in a partitioned corner of the restroom in the new student union.

“My sister told me about it, and I didn’t believe it,” said Najla Malaibari, a graduate student at Eastern Michigan. “I was, ‘No way,’ and she said, ‘Yeah, go crazy.’ It really is convenient.”

TRAVEL / PETS:
Think Your Dog Is Smart? Its Collar May Be Even Smarter

By ANNE EISENBERG
Published: August 5, 2007

Collars with Global Positioning System units, motion sensors or other additions help owners keep track of their pets the high-tech way.

EGYPT:
Gone crocodile hunting on the Nile

The Egyptian media is abuzz over a rare reptile sighting in Cairo. Our reporter joins the chase.
By Jill Carroll

Word is, the crocodile – or alligator – has swum downstream to the northern Cairo neighborhood of Maadi.

OIL:
Ghana aims to avoid the 'oil curse'

"

What most people don't understand about oil is that, not only does the money not filter through to the majority of the population, but it's much worse than that," says Nicholas Shaxson, an oil analyst at the London-based Chatham House think tank and the author of "Poisoned Wells," which examines how the resource affects countries. "It actively makes most people poorer."

Why 'peak oil' may soon pique your interest

World oil production peaked in 2005, says one expert, and that presents serious problems in the future

For years, many in the oil industry viewed the peak oil forecasts by Simmons as odd. Now his position has a lot of company. Several websites publish sophisticated material on the issue. There's the Oil Drum (www.theoildrum.com), featuring "Prof. Goose" and "Gail the Actuary." Those pseudonyms hide a full professor at Colorado State University and an actuary in an Atlanta suburb. There's also the Energy Bulletin (www.energybulletin.net). The site's coeditor, Bart Anderson, say it receives 11,000 visits a day. Peak oil enthusiasts, he says, have now divided into a majority seeing life after an oil crunch and those he calls "doomers."

In Britain, Douglas Low, director of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (www.odac-info.org), foresees a "crisis coming up" with a real shortage of oil. In June, he notes, the world used 1.5 MB/D more crude than it produced. He expects much higher oil prices in the future.

CENSORSHIP:
Mr. Know-It-All: Bannable Blog Behavior, Scam Bait, MySpace Geezers

Is it OK to ban someone from posting comments on my blog?

Innovative Approach to Censorship

Imagine this scenario. Two reputable American scholars write a book about how certain ostensibly charitable organizations are financial pass-throughs for radical terrorist groups. The book, which is amply documented, is published by a major academic press in Great Britain. Soon after the book appears, a wealthy Saudi sheik sues the publisher (not the authors) for libel. The publisher, evidently fearful of the cost and burden of litigation, promptly announces that it is withdrawing the book from circulation. It requests that all copies of the book be returned by booksellers and libraries so that the book may be pulped, destroyed, never read by anyone. The publisher issues a statement of apology, acknowledging serious (but undefined) errors in the book, and makes a financial award to the sheik, who pledges to give the money to UNICEF (the sheik is a multi-billionaire).

Syria To Crackdown Tougher On Web Sites

Already, Damascus has stopped blogspot from being used in the country and plans on making it difficult for users to have comments pages on their blogs.

"It is hard to believe that Syria would want to close down all websites with comment sections. Already all Blogspot blogs have been blocked in Syria. They can still be read through Bloglines or any other RSS feed, but the comment sections are not so easily accessed," Joshua Landis, Co-director at the Center of Peace Studies, University of Oklahoma, wrote on his blog.

Iranian journalist sentenced to death in closed trial

MEXICO: Journalist shot and wounded after corruption reports

Abuses Belie China Pledge on Rights, Critics Say

Iran: Another Reformist Paper Closed

Russia stretches 'extremism' laws

For example, any speech deemed "extremist" that occurs during a broadcast can lead to a media outlet being warned, and then shut down, by authorities. "The practical outcome of this rule is that radio and TV stations will simply stop having live debate and talk shows," says Dickmann.

Russia: Top Court Upholds Ban on Party
By JOSHUA YAFFA
Published: August 8, 2007

The Supreme Court upheld the Moscow City Court’s ban of the National Bolshevik Party as an extremist organization. The small fringe party has gained notoriety for its vocal and theatrical antigovernment demonstrations. The group’s leader, the writer Eduard Limonov, said in a telephone interview that he did not expect the latest ruling to affect its activities, including participation in the Other Russia coalition, a loose movement of anti-Kremlin forces that includes the former chess champion Garry Kasparov. “They will not shut us up,” Mr. Limonov said. “We have no fear.” He said the party would appeal the ruling to the European Court of Human Rights.

MY CURRENT PET PEEVE: THE NEW WIRETAPPING LAW
A Gateway for Hackers

The Security Threat in the New Wiretapping Law
U.S. communications technology is fragile and easily penetrated. While advanced, it is not decades ahead of that of our friends or our rivals. Compounding the issue is a key facet of modern systems design: Intercept capabilities are likely to be managed remotely, and vulnerabilities are as likely to be global as local. In simplifying wiretapping for U.S. intelligence, we provide a target for foreign intelligence agencies and possibly rogue hackers. Break into one service, and you get broad access to U.S. communications.

AT&T Tells Court That Secret Wiretapping Destroys Privacy (in 1927)

The function of a telephone system in our modern economy is, so far as reasonably practicable, to enable any two persons at a distance to converse privately with each other as they might do if both were personally present in the privacy of the home or office of either one. […]

The wire tapper destroys this privacy. He invades the "person" of the citizen, and his "house," secretly and without warrant.[…]

[…]It is better that a few criminal escape than that the privacies of life of all the people be exposed to the agents of the government, who will act at their own discretion, the honest and the dishonest, unauthorized and unrestrained by the courts.

Wiretaps - A Remedy for Expats

This is for all the people (particularly expats) who are as pissed as I am about the passage of the extended wiretap program aka

Measure Number: S. 1927
Measure Title: A bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to provide additional procedures for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence information and for other purposes.

Here's a link to the actual Roll Call Vote, where you can check to see if your Senator voted yea or nay.


At first I was livid (I still am), at the spineless Democrats! But then, Number One Son reminded me that we have a brand new phone system here in Cairo, and we don't have to worry about having our phones tapped (at least that's what we think.)

When we first bought our house in CT in 2002 we were calling Baku, Azerbaijan on a regular basis (we lived in Baku most of the year.) The whole family noticed a strange noise - a regular consistent ping in the background during our overseas conversations; a noise we also heard on our in country calls eventually, as well. When we returned to the States and no longer made overseas calls, the noise went away. Then we moved to Cairo, it started back up again. Passing this bill just gives the Bush Administration a free pass on illegal wiretapping (I don't care what anyone says, it's still illegal) and an invasion of privacy.

So what if I'm not a terrorist, and why should I care? Because I've lived in countries where it is assumed that your phones(and home/office) are tapped, that your freedom of speech is limited, you can not say negative things about the host government, and that your civil liberties are close to non-existent. One of the things that made me proud to be an American, was that we didn't stoop to such nonsense, that we respected the right to privacy, and that our government didn't spy on just anyone making an overseas call, but on people who were suspected of criminal wrongdoing. This bill allows the government to listen in on any and all calls made from the States to overseas numbers. So when the bill was passed and rapidly signed, I was pissed (that's putting it mildly). As I said earlier, Number One Son reminded me that we had a way to avoid this harassment, and invasion of civil liberties, at least in respect to phone calls.

So, listen up now! Here's the lowdown:

You will need an overseas DSL account in order for this to work.

1) Anyone who has any sort of address in the USA can get a phone from Vonage.

2) You'll pay around $29.00 a month, plus a registration fee (about $30.00).

3) Have it billed to your AM EX, VISA, or MasterCard to save the trees (no paper trail).

4) They give you a local number with your phone. For instance, if you live in CT where we do, then you get an 860 area code.

5) They send you a box.

6) Hook it up to your USA DSL Internet system to make sure it works.

7) Take the box overseas with you, and hook it up to your overseas DSL Box - again, that's a requirement for this to all work.

8) Give your new phone number to everyone you know, so when they call you, they are saving money (because it's a "local" call), and so are you (particularly if you were using your mobile a lot). Plus, no one can "listen in" on your calls anymore.

9) In addition, you can just have your home (USA) phone number calls forwarded to the Vonage number, and people can call you at all hours of the night asking you for freaking donations!


We have DSL, use MAC's, and we have wi-fi throughout the house here in Cairo. We figure we should save a few hundred dollars (that's a conservative figure) a month using Vonage. We have two kids in college, who like to chat a lot (daily) and would regularly call us on our mobiles.


We hooked our Vonage up to our Ethernet connection on our Airport Extreme. The Airport Extreme has a splitter which is where we hooked up both the telephone and Vonage. You may need extra telephone cord, and or cables, depending on the layout / positioning of your overseas network.


To save money, we started using Skype earlier this year, which is also a good alternative, but requires headphones to get rid of the echo. Not sure if those are counted as overseas calls, since they're Internet to Internet and my IP Address shows it's from Egypt (or so I was told by Abercrombie and Fitch when they decided to disregard an order I placed. That, my friends, is called discrimination, and another story in itself.)

And, ladies, if you do decide to go with Skype, don't put "female" on your profile, otherwise every Tom, Dick and Harry will try to contact you.

Vonage is working out really well for us. I don't watch the clock, I can talk as long as I want, and as freely as I want.

Let me just add that even though we think we're pretty fucking savvy here in this house, we can't build a bomb (except f-bombs), and so I'm sure the real terrorists will find a way around this decision too.

David Pogue, from the New York Times, tests the options here:
Get Your Free Net Phone Calls Here

David Pogue explores the ins and outs of making free phone calls through the Internet.

For example, programs like Skype offer unlimited free calls — but not from your phone. You and your conversation partner have to sit at your computers wearing headsets, like nerds.

Then there are those annoyingly named VoIP services (voice over Internet protocol), like Vonage. You plug both your broadband Internet modem and your existing phone handset into an adapter box. Presto: unlimited domestic calls from your regular phone.

Now, I just have to figure out how to re-route my international e-mails so that they're not read either!


Oh, and I would like to thank Number One Son for stopping me from banging my head up against the wall.


Headzup: Gonzo's New Powers

Funkengroovin Wednesday - Bugs!

Just added a very cool new link: Building a beetle

This beetle project started with the purchase of a 1967 1500cc beetle. The beetle was in a very bad condition and needed major surgery to be revived to a new state of youth.

This site has some great photos of the work he's doing and loads of videos. He's also got links to other beetle restoration projects on the web. Check it out!


VW City Expert

VW will also show the production Tiguan and six new Bluemotion models, but the big news is this rear-engined city car. CAR first reported VW’s plans for the car back in our May issue. Whilst the City Expert will now have a water-cooled engine as opposed to air, it is closer in concept to the original Beetle than the modern namesake could ever hope to be.

VW’s car will cost around £3500 in developing markets, whilst Europe's version will cost around £5000. The City Expert is claimed to be ‘sensationally flexible’ because it will be available in three different bodystyles for varying markets. We’ll have a three-door hatch, India a five-door, and China will get a four-door saloon.

Although the engine is in the back, and steeply angled for more boot room, the battery, air-con unit and radiator are in the nose: both ends have a luggage compartment. Power steering isn’t expected to be available – it’s not needed due to the lack of weight over the front wheels – but ESP should be standard in Europe. Such simplicity should cut the build time of the car to an industry-leading 12 hours.

Engines will vary depending on the market but Europe should get a mix of two and three-cylinder models, whilst a one-cylinder car is under consideration for developing markets. A twin-cylinder car should instantly be £650 cheaper for VW to make, sources claim.

Preview of the next-generation VW Beetle: Coming in 2009


The VW Ultimatum

Aspiring directors and stunt drivers can go to Bourne Stunt Stimulator to test their skills in creating a series of stunts similar to those in the movie. Users can combine any of six VW vehicles with different explosions, speeds, props and sound effects; employ hundreds of different camera angles; or edit various sequences, and then play back the results for friends.

The stunt simulator is part of the automaker's ongoing "See Films Differently" marketing campaign.

New record for bridesmaids

The wedding belle arrived in a VW camper van, a reminder of their days travelling through Australia, while Andy and his 11 ushers arrived at the church on time on a fleet of scooters.

Postcards from our past. Six generations of writers reveals their holiday memories

1980s
Alex James, 38, former bassist in Blur, is now a writer and farmer, and lives in Oxfordshire with his wife Claire and their three sons.

The fun really started when we got the split-screen VW camper. Everybody had them in the Eighties.

My parents, my sister and I put aboard the Le Havre ferry out of Southampton without really knowing where we were going.

It was my job to look up the camp sites in the Michelin guide and I always wondered what it would be like to stay in the expensive hotels advertised there.

I've stayed in them since, but I've never enjoyed luxury as much as that first rush of total freedom and wanderlust in the bosom of the family VW.

(Check out the article for a nice photo.)



Bug collector fondly recalls crawlers and those that flew

I remember the dreaded cable freeze for year-round heat; the wing windows open for air on 95, going to my dad's house in Connecticut; the box I built for extra speakers behind the back seat and parking on a hill when the starter went bad while at school.

I used to get in behind the trucks going up 95 to save money on gas. They'd pull me all the way to Exit 18 on the turnpike and my gas gauge wouldn't move. To this day, in my home office, I still have the manual I bought to fix some things myself to save money.

What Can Be Done With The VW Beetle
Part 1
Part 2

Last but not least, some dude (Automative 20) translated one of my blogs into German! Das ist meine blog! (My German sucks.)



I prefer to have live performance / music videos for my Funkengroovin Wednesdays, but since this week is a bugger, so-to-speak, I decided this video might actually be better suited for this week's post.

Gus VW Beetle Video - Crazy

Around the Hood - Coffee Wars

Some things change and some stay the same in neighborhoods. I've only been here since early November, and things are hopping down on Road 9. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Beano's is expanding. They're at war with the newcomers to the neighborhood, Costa Coffee (in the old Chicken Tikka place.)




Here's both Costa Coffee and Beano's, side by side on Road 9.

In one photo (below, left), outdoor air conditioners are being delivered to Beano's. As the waiter said, "it's very hot out, no." They installed them while we sipped our coffee, but we haven't had a chance to see how they work. Apparently, Beano's has decided to pull out all the stops to fight back at the Costa Coffee encroachment.

Beano's expansion took over La Poire pastry shop. Where is La Poire you ask?











La Poire has moved next to Onyx Jewelry and Silver shop, on the opposite side of the street.











A few doors up Mediterraneo is not only still in business, but is now offering Sushi.

On the other hand, The Mermaid still has the same daily special!



Unfortunately, if you happen to be shopping during prayer times, you may find your favorite shops "closed for praying."





There's a new school in the area: The Irish School - still wondering what's with that. Do they serve Guinness? Or maybe the kids get off on St. Paddy's Day? Not sure, but it looks like a very small school, most likely for toddlers.
















Canal Road is becoming one huge garbage dump. Besides, containing more than it's share of neighborhood litter, someone has decided that the trees needed to get a good whacking too. I'm not sure what's happening down there, but it is a path I have to take in order to get to Road 9, and it just seems to be looking worse and worse each time I pass through.














































On the other side of the Metro tracks, The Swiss Chalet is now The Cellar Door Bistro. Same menu, same ownership, same chef, just a new name.  They replaced some of the chairs with white pleather booth seats.
































Last, but not least, on Road 118 The Roastery is undergoing renovation. The Bank of Abu Dhabi machine in front of the Residence Hotel has not been working for three weeks now, even though the hotel management has called them numerous times. This is a real pain in the ass for the folks who live nearby (like me), and don't want to walk a mile in 100 degree heat to get our hands on some cash.