Weekend News Roundup: Maadi Has Best Burger!!!

An assortment of articles this week, ranging from the world's best hamburger to just a few censorship items. Three articles about Egypt, plus a few on politics, and one on diversifying America's parks, constitute the rest of the articles (not necessarily in this order.)

How many times have I mentioned Road 9 in Maadi? Well, one establishment there, Lucille's, has been named "The Best Hamburger" by the author of Postcards from Cairo for TIME Magazine.

The World's Best Hamburger Is in Egypt

When I asked general manager Essam Mabrouk the secret of the burgers, it turned out there is indeed a special ingredient, which is lathered on the beef patty as soon as it hits the heat. (He hinted it has something to do with fish, but refused to divulge more.) Mabrouk hauled me into the kitchen to show me some other reasons for Lucille's success: fresh, organic ingredients. Six kitchen butchers double-grind ultra-lean round and rump steaks, mixing in a secret ratio of "clean" fat, and then double-press the patties in a mold to ensure cooking consistency. The lettuce, tomato and onions are grown in the Nile River basin's year-round sunshine, requiring no preservatives. "It really boils down to the fact that it's all homemade," Lucille tells me. "We've gone back to basics. I don't throw anything in the grinder that doesn't belong there."

Also, an excerpt from a book about an Egyptian family moving abroad.

Searching for My Father's Lost City

Before we fled, Cairo was a cosmopolitan crossroads. How much still remains?

My father, who had lived in Egypt since the turn of the century, had been a prosperous businessman and pleasure seeker who gambled with King Farouk. My mother was a teacher and librarian in a private school supported by a Pasha and his wife. I attended the tony Lycée Français du Caire where at five, I wore a grey uniform with a crest. We left a year later, when my father, who had tried to hold on, succumbed to pressure from my older siblings who felt there was no future for them in Egypt.

Sadly, reluctantly, Dad gave away the lease to our apartment and signed papers known as aller sans retour. It meant that we were leaving and never coming back.

It was a wrenching departure, and we never got over it. No matter where we went we always looked back on Egypt with longing. "Ragaouna Masr," my dad would cry out in Arabic, especially as he fell on hard times in America. Colloquially, it meant "Take us back to Cairo!"

My father died in 1993, having never returned to Egypt. Recently, I returned to Cairo.

Adapted from 'The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit,My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World ' by Lucette Lagnado.

From Amazon

Book Description
In vivid and graceful prose, Lucette Lagnado re-creates the majesty and cosmopolitan glamour of Cairo in the years between World War II and Gamal Abdel Nasser's rise to power. Her father, Leon, was a boulevardier who conducted business on the elegant terrace of Shepheard's Hotel, and later, in the cozy, dark bar of the Nile Hilton, dressed in his signature white sharkskin suit. But with the fall of King Farouk and Nasser's nationalization of Egyptian industry, Leon and his family lose everything. As streets are renamed, neighborhoods of their fellow Jews disbanded, and the city purged of all foreign influence, the Lagnados, too, must make their escape. With all of their belongings packed into twenty-six suitcases, their jewels and gold coins hidden in sealed tins of marmalade, Leon and his family depart for any land that will take them. The poverty and hardships they encounter in their flight from Cairo to Paris to New York are strikingly juxta-posed against the beauty and comforts of the lives they left behind.

An inversion of the American dream set against the stunning portraits of three world cities, Lucette Lagnado's memoir offers a grand and sweeping story of faith, tradition, tragedy, and triumph.

Egyptian attempts to curb smoking receive skeptical response

CAIRO, Egypt: In a country where perhaps the most popular national past-time is puffing on a water pipe or chain smoking while drinking tea, new laws designed to curb smoking are receiving a skeptical response.

If you want to read one piece in this Roundup, please take a look at The Obscured Continent, from the Columbia Journalism Review. It's a critique of a recent Vanity Fair Magazine, The Africa Issue. For anyone who is a Vanity Fair fan like I am, seeing Madonna on the cover of a magazine featuring articles solely about Africa, made my skin crawl. The woman "bought" an African child, for God's sake (and some controversy to go along with it) and we should look at her as a spokesman / representative of what's happening in Africa today? It's a never ending parade of celebreality angst, and let's not forget, they are today's swamis on the issue, are they not? It's like a mad dash by the "look at me, look at me, look at me" brigade screaming, "I'm a do-gooder. I've got morals too! " scrambling for (retch!) the next award - The Nobel Peace Prize? (People, please don't trample over each other now.) I don't think buying children is exactly what the Prize committee had in mind. After I received a lecture from a GAP store employee on how many vaccines $1.00 could buy, when I was purchasing a "Red" item for less than that, (and already knowing that only about ten percent actually went towards the "Red" campaign,) it seemed to me to be just another way to make more money. The business of America is business, and Africa be damned! Don't get me wrong, but as The Columbia Journalism Review critique states, Vanity Fair could've presented more Africans who are working to make a change, rather than a bunch of botoxed celebrities.  Oh and is Africa so damned desperate that ten percent will fix it?  C'mon!  What a load of capitalist garbage! Why don't they outsource to Africa and help the Africans help themselves?  

For those of you who need some comfort read  this:

In a recent story, the Washington Post tackles cause marketing's paradoxical nature, and seems to theorize that perhaps consumers are just a little too confused to participate in such initiatives: "Cause marketing soothes the compunctions of a mass-consumption culture at the same time that it contributes to that excess. It allows us to be giving at the same time that we are selfish."

Mother Jone's latest issue: Politics 2.0, describes the technological revolution in politics. It also displays how a blog like the Daily Kos can influence thousands of people to email, call, write to their representatives, or just whoever the Daily Kos is angry with at the moment, subsequently stirring them into a frenzy. Someone tell me how this is different from Osama's call to arms. These people are becoming celebrities, they get paid and advise politicians. They are basically becoming the same people they despise - lobbyists and Republicans, and they also command a cadre of thousands.  Oh, and you think Cheney's a secretive creep?  Apparently, it's contagious.

Open-source politics is the idea that social networking and participatory technologies will revolutionize our ability to follow, support, and influence political campaigns. Forget party bosses in smoky backrooms—netroots evangelists and web consultants predict a wave of popular democracy as fundraisers meet on MySpace, YouTubers crank out attack ads, bloggers do oppo research, and cell-phone-activated flash mobs hold miniconventions in Second Life. The halls of power will belong to whoever can tap the passion of the online masses. That kid with a laptop has Karl Rove quaking in his boots. And if you believe that, we've got some leftover Pets.com stock to sell you.

Picnics, Games and Culture Shock

Parks Work to Tailor Services While Educating Immigrants on Rules

Feeling helpless, parks employees turned to their computers, Googling such terms as "Persian" and "holiday" and "spring." That's how they learned that on Sizdeh Bedar, a popular celebration in Iran, it's considered unlucky to stay indoors. Now each April, the park is ready with extra staff.

Parks are changing, too: Montgomery County built a cricket field for its Jamaican and Indian expats. Fairfax County is contemplating bigger picnic pavilions for Latino families, who tend to gather in large groups and stay longer. The Northern Virginia park authority plans to offer instant kimchi, a cabbage dish, alongside hot dogs at some of its snack stands to appeal to Korean golfers.

"It's about connections rather than enforcement," said John Berlin, program section manager for the Fairfax County Park Authority. "It's putting out the welcome mat to the international community, not just saying, 'Here's how we Americans do things.' "

The "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" law of the week, coming from the U.K. in a TIME Magazine article:
Hubble, Bubble, Hookah Trouble

Despite all the predictions of mass outrage, New York, Dublin and even Paris have adjusted to bans on smoking in public places with quiet resignation rather than rebellion. But with London's ban commencing this week, the city's sizable Muslim population will not easily accept the closure of their beloved shisha bars.

Café owners allied with El-Nour are lobbying for London to follow the example of New York, which made exceptions in its smoking ban for cigar rooms and hookah bars. They point out that the British ban already exempts private homes, hospitals, prisons, hotel bedrooms and, revealingly, the Houses of Parliament. If politicians can continue to puff away with impunity, they ask, why can't we?

Censorship:

I've included the article on the mosque debate because I consider attempts to stop it from being a built a form of censorship. Decide for yourself.  And Iran starting it's own English speaking station?  Anyone who has kept up with the news knows this is another scheme to divert Iranian attention away from their country's own pressing issues (which Achmadinajed is sorely at need to do.)

Germans Split Over a Mosque and the Role of Islam

Plans for what would be one of Germany’s largest mosques are rattling an ancient city to its foundations.

But the proposal has also drawn fierce criticism from a respected German-Jewish writer, Ralph Giordano, who said the mosque would be “an expression of the creeping Islamization of our land.” And he does not want to see women shrouded in veils on German streets, he said.

“For me, it is self-evident that the Muslims need to have a prestigious place of worship,” said Mr. Schramma, who belongs to the center-right Christian Democratic Union. “But it bothers me when people have lived here for 35 years and they don’t speak a single word of German.”

Cologne, with one of the largest Muslim populations of any German city, already has nearly 30 mosques. Most are in converted factories or warehouses, often tucked away in hidden courtyards, which has contributed to a sense that Muslims in Germany can worship only furtively.

But Mr. Broder said that his underlying message was valid, and that his stature as a writer gave him the standing to say it. “A mosque is more than a church or a synagogue,” he said. “It is a political statement.”

Trial in Editor’s Killing Opens, Testing Rule of Law in Turkey

Eighteen young men are charged in the assassination of the newspaper editor Hrant Dink, a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, who was shot and killed in January.

The trial’s verdict will have broad implications for free speech. Ultranationalist Turks have used an article of the country’s criminal code that forbids “insulting Turkishness” to push the government to bring charges against Turkish writers, including Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist. Mr. Dink received a suspended sentence under the statute. His supporters argue that a limp prosecution of his killing will embolden nationalists.

Orkut.com banned in the UAE

Dubai: Controversial website Orkut.com has been blocked in the UAE after Gulf News highlighted the concerns of readers that it contains sexually explicit material.

Iran Expands Role in Media, via Satellite and in English

Press TV, Iran’s new 24-hour English-language satellite television channel, which aims to compete with the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera International, launched on Monday

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the staff during an opening ceremony on Monday that the channel “should stay beside the oppressed people of the world,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency said.

“Broadcasting the truth immediately, providing precise analysis and exposing the plots of propaganda networks of the enemy is among your duties,” he was quoted as saying.

Funkengroovin Wednesday

From Connecticut to Cairo: Connecticut
First, let me thank Number One Son for giving me the Bonnaroo Cold, or what-ever it is. Something like the Hajj Flu, it's a virus that spreads among many thousands who are in very close in proximity to each other. Whether it be walking around the Kabaa, or sharing who knows what they share at Bonnaroo (I hate to think), it's basically the same thing, and it has knocked me on my ass! Apologies to all those flying on the planes with me when I was possibly contagious.   (It's not like I'm carrying T.B. or anything like that - knock on wood.) Aand, as if, I've never been coughed on....


Even though we took our Van up to Bob's in West Springfield (and the Audi too), both times I forgot to take my camera. Call me an idiot. On Tuesday June 26, the day I was flying out Bob, had Bug #53 and a Baha Buggy in the lot! Go ahead, shoot me! I did catch a Maroon Vanagon down the road from my house and a couple of greetings in Cairo, though one's just the back end. I need to get with the program, but I'm afraid I was suffering from exhaustion, too. Check out the spelling from the handwritten sign on the rear end of the bug.


Cairo:
































Transporting goods in Cairo - possibly in a taxi. (Is that a flat screen TV?)
















Playing with photos: When the Boss Man first got his Nikon Cool-Pix back in Abu Dhabi, it came with a negative scanning accessory. No one ever used it. Then, out of boredom, in Baku, Azerbaijan one summer, Number One Son began experimenting and here lies a sample. Photo on the left: Original; Photo on the right: Experiment.  Kinda cool.




Boss Man just sent me an item for sale from GoWesty. A 1987 Vanagon Full Camper Syncro - #881 . I'm not their sales agent, so don't get me wrong here.  

  

Check it out.  Who's gonna keep this thing in immaculate condition? (I hope they have a maid), or is it just a "show piece" for an ex - hippie wannabe?  And, if it's so great and to his specs, why the hell is he selling it? Let me think - maybe, 'cause it's too nice to actually use?  

(From GoWesty) Description:

Luis wants a bright red Syncro Westy. Problem is, no such thing exists. So, he had us build him this all new, totally custom Syncro Westy. We started with a rust free, collision free, dark gray 1987 2WD Westfalia GL Camper. We took it COMPLETELY apart, had it painted bright red, and converted it to ALL NEW 4WD running gear, and the rest is history. It is getting one of our all new 2.5 liter power plants, decoupler, front and rear lockers, 16" wheels, custom geared transaxle, Recaro leather/cloth seats, all new interior panels re-done in Recaro leather/cloth combination to match the front seats, and, and, and.... Well you get the picture, just dream it up, and this one will have it!

.

..For the low, low price of $67,769.43 (009,027 miles)

Did you say, "overpriced!"  No shit Sherlock!


I confess - I'm a member of the Bob Dylan Fan Club and I get to order my tickets before they go on sale to the public. Bob and the band were playing in Northampton, MA., not too far from our place. But it was the night I was leaving to return to Cairo. Since it was close to Number One Son's birthday, I got him some tickets. I've never seen Bob in a live concert and maybe, one of these days, I'll get the chance, Inshallah (God Willing). This is one of my favorite Bob Dylan videos, it has an old time feel to it, I think because everyone in the band is moving to their own beat, but then totally in sync.

Bob Dylan - Cold Irons Bound

Lights Out

Before I left Cairo last month, on one day alone, we had five blackouts. I was worried, since it was not that hot out and wondered what happens when the temperatures really start soaring. Sunday, we had three: One at 2:00 AM lasting for about five minutes; One at 9:55 AM again lasting about five minutes; then another at 5:25 PM lasting an hour. I hate the ones in the middle of the night, when the air conditioning goes off, and you think your life blood just got sucked right out of your body, and on top of it, you can't see a damned thing.


I've experienced black-outs in every city I've lived in, but not as numerous as here. We finally turned off the printer. Every time it starts up, it shoots out a calibration page which goes flying through the air. I may not have as many amenities here, as I would have in the States, but I do have a few trusted friends: coolers with plenty of ice packs; batteries; battery operated punch lights (originally bought for use with our Vanagon), my candle light flashlight, and the gas stove.


We used to have a battery operated TV, but it doesn't work overseas, though it did drive our neighbors in Shaker Heights crazy when the electricity went out for three days, after a huge summer storm. The neighbors couldn't figure out why we had a blue light emanating from the bedroom. Again, we bought the TV for use during college, then used it for camping when Awesome Daughter was young. As she said laying in the van with us at night, "this is cool." Everyone thought it was pretty cool when the lights went out in Cleveland too.


Wife:

"What's that blue light in the house across the street?"

Husband:

"Hmm, TV's let out a blue light."

Wife:

"Yes, but the electricity's out!"

Weekend News Roundup

As usual, articles that caught my attention, plus censorship. Last week, I edited and edited and edited and my blog was spaced erratically. Blogger has solved the problem which includes more editing of the html. Sheesh! So I've decided to let it be. If it runs together so be it.


The photo of the cat, is one feral animal that has decided to sleep on my bedroom porch. It's a Cairene cat, fairly small, and I'm a dog lover, so this little animal annoys me. On the other hand, after hearing all the screeching that goes on here nightly, I figure the poor thing needs some rest, especially after I spotted it in the yard, with the top of it's ear chewed off. The photo of the jar of cherries, yes might look similar to what we Greeks call "visinada", a cherry syrupy drink, but no. I soak my sour cherries, in the sun, with sugar and vodka for over a month, and then add some brandy to let it brew a couple of weeks thereafter. That's how I like my cherry drink and it should be done just in time for the kids' arrival. But for the non-alcoholic version, check out the article below.


I've tried to shorten the quotes, since they seem to take up a lot of room and with Blogger being idiosyncratic these days, I decided to take it easy. The links are there for anyone wanting the full article.


And, alhamdullilah! Egypt has decided to ban female circumcision. Why is it that it always takes death to make us pay attention? Also, we see the stupid well in the U.S. deepen. Lawmakers can set dates for everyone to have passports, but can't get their own act together in anticipation. We've experienced that stupidity ourselves in my own family, here, and here. I will admit, Awesome Daughter had much better experience, with a two week, or so turn around time. On the other hand her application went to the Kentucky servicing facility and who the hell in Kentucky is applying for a passport? My guess - no one.


Plus, the Chinese connection to Sudan? "Oil, black gold", Sudanese.... Get a new perspective on what's fueling some of the problems in Sudan. And much ado about Rupert - Murdock, that is.



Egypt Bans Female Circumcision

The death of a 12-year-old Egyptian girl at the hands of a doctor performing female circumcision has sparked a public outcry and prompted health and religious authorities to ban the practice.

Her mother, Zeniab Abdel Ghani, told the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper that she paid about $9 to a female physician to perform the procedure.

Female genital mutilation usually involves the removal of the clitoris and other parts of female genitalia. Those who practice it say it tames a girl's sexual desire and maintains her honor.

After the girl's death, the country's supreme religious authorities stressed that Islam is against female circumcision.
"Its prohibited, prohibited, prohibited," Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa said on the privately owned al-Mahwar network.

Egypt's renowned feminist activist, Nawal el-Saadawi, 76, who has published a biography on her own experience with circumcision, wrote: "Badour, did you have to die for some light to shine in the dark minds? Did you have to pay with your dear life a price ... for doctors and clerics to learn that the right religion doesn't cut children's organs."

Study Traces Cat’s Ancestry to Middle East

All the world’s 600 million housecats are descended from the subspecies known as Felis silvestris lybica, scientists have concluded based on new DNA research.

The wildcat DNA closest to that of house cats came from 15 individuals collected in the deserts of Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the researchers say.

Since the oldest archaeological site with a cat burial is about 9,500 years old, the geneticists suggest that the founders of the five lineages lived around this time and were the first cats to be domesticated.

Until recently the cat was commonly believed to have been domesticated in ancient Egypt, where it was a cult animal. But three years ago a group of French archaeologists led by Jean-Denis Vigne discovered the remains of an 8-month-old cat buried with its human owner at a Neolithic site in Cyprus. The Mediterranean island was settled by farmers from Turkey who brought their domesticated animals with them, presumably including cats, because there is no evidence of native wildcats in Cyprus.

The date of the burial far precedes Egyptian civilization. Together with the new genetic evidence, it places the domestication of the cat in a different context, the beginnings of agriculture in the Near East, and probably in the villages of the Fertile Crescent, the belt of land that stretches up through the countries of the eastern Mediterranean and down through what is now Iraq.

TRAVEL AND DRINK:
Spas Enliven Jordan’s Salty Shore

Playing catch-up to the spas on the Israeli side, four hotels have been erected along Jordan’s eastern muddy shores, offering a multitude of affusion showers and aromatherapy sessions.

The Road Back to Damascus

From its ancient ruins to its surprising night life, Syria is archaeologically stunning, budget friendly and, equally important, largely safe for Western tourists.

“New York, great city!” he said. “Ahlan wa sahlan bi Sham.”

...Syria remains a tightly controlled society that is largely devoid of street and organized crime, due in part to extensively deployed police and undercover intelligence services. Militant groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood are officially banned and suppressed — sometimes very brutally — by the nation’s ostensibly secular Baathist leadership. For travelers, the risk of theft, attack or even harassment remains small. In my own travels, I never felt threatened and never once heard of any other tourists being accosted.

Traveling With Fluffy or Fido? Be Prepared

A follow-up to last month’s column with Cesar Millan on traveling with pets and a sampling of readers’ responses.

Although Cesar Millan condoned sedating dogs traveling in the airplane cabin — as long as the owner was careful to test the medication and monitor the pet’s reaction to it before traveling — some readers were adamantly opposed.

The Cherries of Persia

The drink I chose — a sour cherry confection — had the taste of summer. Bitingly tart and soothingly sweet rather than sour, it blocked out the noise and heat and rules of the Islamic Republic just outside the doors of the ayatollah’s house.
Recipe: Sour Cherry Syrup

Taste of Colonialism

FR.OG, a SoHo restaurant and bar that opened in April introduce the Sazarak — a Middle Eastern riff on the sazerac, the canonical New Orleans cocktail.

“I was only able to find one distributor for arak,” Mr. Lewis said. Sometimes called the “milk of lions” in the Middle East, arak is an anise-flavored spirit in the same family as ouzo, sambuca and pastis.

Article includes recipe.




In Quest for Passport, Patience, Time and Contacts Count

New travel restrictions for U.S. citizens traveling to Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and countries in the Caribbean have resulted in a backlog of passport applications.

New travel restrictions for citizens traveling to Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and countries in the Caribbean, who previously had not needed passports to re-enter the United States, have doubled the turnaround time for an application to 12 weeks from 6.

The result is a backlog of nearly three million applications — including those of people like Colonel King, who are not traveling to countries affected by the new restrictions. Many travelers have turned to their Congressional representatives to get appointments at one of the 14 regional passport agencies or to arrange for expedited service.

OIL:

In Sudan, China focuses on oil wells, not local needs

The Chinese are far from the first to be accused of taking advantage of this continent. In fact, they are walking down a path well traveled by many of those very nations now pointing an accusatory finger at them.

"I would not say this is colonialism, as that term was specific to a particular place and time," he says. "But I would call it apostcolonial exploitation, in which the Chinese are stripping the continent of raw material as fast as they can and are fairly ruthless about bringing their own laborers for projects and ignoring locals."

CENSORSHIP:

For those of you who have not lived in the Middle East before Orbit TV, there was only one: STAR TV, owned by Rupert Murdock. For more on what media Murdock owns, look here. For those of you who want a long story made short and don't want to read all the articles, just watch Keith. He sums it up pretty well.

Keith Olbermann on Rupert Murdock, Part 1




Keith Olbermann, Part 2:





Bill Moyers, On Murdock:

But the problem isn't just Rupert Murdoch. His pursuit of The Wall Street Journal is the latest in a cascading series of mergers, buy-outs, and other financial legerdemain that are making a shipwreck of journalism. Public minded newspapers are being dumped by their owners for wads of cash or crippled by cost cutting while their broadcasting cousins race to the bottom. Murdoch is just the predator of the hour.

TIME Magazine,
Exclusive: Rupert Murdoch Speaks:

"They're taking five billion dollars out of me and want to keep control," Rupert Murdoch was saying into the phone, "in an industry in crisis! They can't sell their company and still control it — that's not how it works. I'm sorry!"

This page has links to more:
Murdoch vs. Family-Owned Newspapers
Why the Wall Street Journal Deserves Murdoch
THE BATTLE OF NEW YORK


And it doesn't end there. For more on the press sucking up to the powers that be see the article down farther: Free Press In France: The Right To Say What Politicians Want

Bending to Power

How Rupert Murdoch built his empire, and how he uses it
But it is linked to the history of a few great newspapers, The Wall Street Journal being a prime example. The argument for Murdoch’s qualification to control the Journal seems to be predicated on his stewardship of another great newspaper, The Times.

But The Times is only the ghost of a great newspaper, which died decades ago, and which has not come back to life after a quarter century in Murdoch’s hands. It did try to revive itself, under a great editor, just after he bought it. And as we’ve seen it that was quickly suppressed, for fear of offending the politicians in power.

A Marine Tutorial on Media ‘Spin’

Military hearings on the murders of 24 Iraqis in Haditha in November 2005 have unearthed a memo complete with “talking points” and a searing view of American journalists.

Second Case Brought Against Saudi Religious Police in Death of a Suspect

The kingdom's religious police enforce a strict interpretation of Islamic law. With 10,000 members in almost 500 offices across the country, they make sure restaurants and stores are closed during prayer times and enforce bans on prostitution, consumption or sale of alcohol, and pornography.

The force enjoys wide support among Saudi conservatives, who fear the encroachment of Western values and feel the kingdom's Islamic mores would erode without it. The commission's mandate is based on a Koranic ruling.

But religious police have also long been resented for their zealous involvement in people's private affairs and the free rein they enjoyed until recently.

And, for good measure, Iranian Cyberfeminist Multimedia

"Change for Equality: The Site of the One Million Signatures Campaign, Change for Equality, has been blocked once again. This latest effort at censorship marks the 6th time that the site of the Campaign has been blocked by authorities.

Russian Probe Shuts Media Foundation

MOSCOW -- A Russian nonprofit organization funded by the U.S. government to train journalists and improve management at local television stations has been shuttered by a criminal investigation that critics charge is politically motivated.

"There are certain cases that are key cases," said Kuznetsov. "This case is a litmus test. It defines the condition of this society, the justice system, censorship, openness, freedom of speech, the basic values of a society and a democracy."

Free Press in France: The Right to Say What Politicians Want

The issue of self-censorship has come into sharp relief because of declining circulation and a concentration of media ownership among the new president’s allies.

Text Messages Giving Voice to Chinese

Opponents of Chemical Factory Found Way Around Censors

Despite efforts by local Public Security Bureau technicians to block the cellphone campaign, thousands of people heeded the alarm during the last days of May. Despite warnings from city hall and a large turnout of uniformed and plainclothes police, they marched in hot, muggy weather through the streets of Xiamen to protest the chemical factory being built on Haicang, an industrial and residential island across a narrow strait from downtown Xiamen.

The demonstrations were largely peaceful, except for pushing against policemen lined up to stop the march, witnesses said. About 8,000 to 10,000 people participated the first day and half that many the second day. But something unprecedented occurred that gave the demonstrators a power even they had not envisioned: Citizen journalists carrying cellphones sent text messages about the action to bloggers in Guangzhou and other cities, who then posted real-time reports for the entire country to see.

Wen said he and his friends have since concluded that if protesters had been armed with cellphones and computers in 1989, there would have been a different outcome to the notorious Tiananmen Square protest, which ended with intervention by the People's Liberation Army and the killings of hundreds, perhaps thousands, in the streets of Beijing.

New Zealand:
New Censorship: It Ain’t Your House You Creeps

Weekend News Roundup - Prelude

stop the clash: Stop The Clash Of Civilizations

Funkengroovin Wednesday - Down Memory Lane

Last night, after much work I thought I totally lost my whole blog. Then, I remembered having sent a draft copy to the Boss Man. I had been so excited about finding the old Bus photos. Originally, I was going to surprise him with the blog. Then I thought about it, and figured I’d need some additional information. He knows everything there is about the cars we’ve owned. He has a memory like an elephant – he never forgets anything, even the smallest details are lodged somewhere in that brain of his. I e-mailed him a draft and am so happy I did. I was able to take my draft, re-edit it (again) and voila! I know my blog post are somewhat sporadic, but my Funkengroovin Wednesdays were to be my regular posts and I was quite upset about not being able to keep my word. Thanks for the patience.

In 1984 the Boss Man bought a used 1969 VW Bus. We also had a new VW Jetta, which, at the time resembled the new Mercedes. It looked like the Mercedes, so much so, that everyone I worked with, at the Department of Human Services, in Sioux City, IA thought I bought a Mercedes (as if I had that kind of money). There was always a Merc parked right next to me, exact same color. Then, one day, I was asked if I blow-dried my hair on my way to work. One of the guys I worked with saw me in my Jetta, all blowers aimed at me, with my fingers and brush fluffing up my hair intermittently. What can I say? The Jetta had amazing blowers, and why waste time blow-drying my hair at home, when I could get a few more minutes of sleep, and have it done on the way to work? My answer was “you bet!” (“You betcha” is a colloquial variation most people remember from Fargo. I would like to add that Peter Stormare, who's seen putting a body through a wood chipper in the movie, is also the character in the VW UnPimp My Ride Commercial.) Sioux City, IA is basically Small Town, U.S.A. People are hard working, honest and courteous. Drivers suddenly stop for cattle crossings, or to pick up a can in the middle of the road for recycling; country roads are lined with corn stalks, and no one’s ever in a rush. It’s a bit like the description on A Prairie Home Companion, “…where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average. (Garrison Keillor) As a matter of fact, weekend trips to see A Prairie Home Companion, in the Twin Cities are fairly common here.

Back to the Bus: The ‘69 Bus had a lame ass heater. We had to put a kerosene heater inside to get it warmed up in the wintertime, and I often wondered if we were being overexposed to the fumes. On January 14, 1985 I went in to work and a half an hour later was as sick as a dog. I left went to my OB/GYN who told me I needed to go to the hospital – yep, I was dilated. I wasn't due for about another month, but we weren't sure on that, and we hadn’t really “planned” this, either. So I went home, feeling totally out of sorts. I was burning up on the coldest day of the year (one that would set a record low) and, stripped off most of my clothing, and called the Boss Man. He told me to get dressed and meet him outside. He would drive me to the hospital in the bus. I used so much energy taking off my clothes I was exhausted and could not get myself dressed, much less climb into a VW Bus. Besides, we had the Jetta. What was he thinking?















He wanted to take me to the hospital, drive me around the block, until I gave birth, just so he could get a Fifty Dollar Savings Bond from Volkswagen. Apparently, they were giving them away to anyone who gave birth in one of their buses. As if. Sure, we didn't have a pot to piss in, but hey, it was a used bus. Who the hell knew what happened in that thing to possibly contaminate it. Remember the bumper sticker, “If this van’s a rockin’, don’t come a knockin’”? “Lady don’t laugh, your daughter might be in this van”















Well, strangely enough, when the Boss Man bought the Bus, he did some digging and tracked it back to its original owner. This guy was in the Armed Services and had taken it to Germany, then to Turkey, where the engine was rebuilt, and then brought it back to the U.S. He cut a pass through in to the middle of the front seat. Originally the van had a bench seat, much like you find in a truck. What were left were the two ends, which turned out to be very uncomfortable. The Boss Man went out and bought a pair of beat up seats from a Honda Civic for $20.00. They both had brand new covers too. Eventually the Boss Man replaced the engine with one from a Beetle. The engine in the photos is the original (love the duct tape – it’s so handy.)


So to sum it up: I went in to work at 8:00 AM and left at 8:30 AM; drove to my doctor's office; went home; removed clothing; felt like pulling my hair out, banging my head up against the wall and ripping my insides out; had a discussion with the Boss Man on mode of transport and why; eventually Boss Man helps me out - dresses me (while my mother sits in another room laughing - she had tunnel vision, but her hearing was amazing); and takes me to the hospital in the Jetta. No Volkswagen Savings Bond for this baby.

Strangely enough, that was Awesome Daughter's birthday and Number One Son just had his nineteenth. The only car he knows is the 1987 VW Camper Van aka Weekender. On the other hand, I went into labor, was transported to and from the hospital in it, so he’s probably got some pretty strong bonds to it. He’s essentially usurped it and practically lives in it now. In 1987, while I was the Boss Man's sag wagon at TOSRV, I saw all the new Vanagons and became insanely jealous. The Boss Man and I checked them out and decided we needed more creature comforts. We sold the 1969 Blue Bus to a friend of our nephew, and traded in the Jetta for the new van. We’ve had it ever since.

As I was packing up to leave Tuesday morning (to return to Cairo), Morning Joe was on MSNBC TV. Morning Joe, with Joe Scarborough replaced Don Imus’ live radio program, which MSNBC used to televise. I came in just at the end of a conversation Joe was having about an incident. From what I understand he was confronted by a woman who said, “You can’t drive a VW Vanagon. You’re too conservative.” At which he replied, “I drive it because I like it.” Well, hell! I thought they had a law against selling VW Vanagons to Republicans! If anyone saw or heard the show, I would love to know the whole story.



Red Hot Chili Peppers: Tell Me Baby

Funkengroovin Wednesday

Dear Readers:

I had a blog all written out for my belated Funkengroovin Wednesday. As I was trying to embed a YouTube Video onto the last section, somehow, my whole blog was deleted.

I can't find it and I don't know where it went. I'm totally upset about this and it's not the first time it's happened. This is becoming a continual problem and I'm not sure what I can do about it it, except to start saving all my blogs in html on Word documents again. When I try to "save" my blog manually, then I end up with several drafts, and when I try to delete the incomplete ones, then all my photos get deleted.

Ever since Blogger updated the site, a little over a month ago, I've had these re-curring problems. I had to resort to using Firefox, because Safari wasn't copacetic with the Blogger updates for a few weeks. I never had this problem with Safari, but now that I'm using Firefox it's happened several times. I don't get all the accessories with Safari, that I get with Firefox (like not having to write in my own html for every single little thing.)

I'm not sure I'll be able to re-load or even re-think my thoughts, and what I had originally written.

I worked on this blog for several days (actually, more than several), waiting until I returned to Cairo to edit and finish it off - which apparently, I did.

When shit like this happens, I truly fell like I'm in bloggatory.

I'm distressed, depressed, and rethinking my blogging life.

It sucks to put a lot of work into something and then just have it disappear.

Apologies,

Vagabondblogger

Funkengroovin Wednesday

Sorry folks, but Funkengroovin Wednesday will be a day late this week. I'm packing to return to Cairo and wasn't able to finish my post in time. I've also had some problems with Blogger layout (not sure anyone has noticed how strangely the last post was spaced).

I hope to have F.W. up Thursday morning, Cairo time. Here's a preview.

Weekend News Roundup - Belated

Apologies to all. I'm running about 24 hours behind.


Quote of the week.


Judge Criticizes Wiretap Program

WASHINGTON, June 23 (AP) — A federal judge who used to authorize wiretaps in terrorist and espionage cases on Saturday criticized President Bush’s decision to order warrantless surveillance after the Sept. 11 attacks.



The judge, Royce C. Lamberth of federal district court in Washington, said it was proper for executive branch agencies to conduct such surveillances. “But what we have found in the history of our country is that you can’t trust the executive,” he said at a convention of the American Library Association.

EGYPT / SUDAN:
Scholars Race to Recover a Lost Kingdom on the Nile

On the periphery of history in antiquity, there was a land known as Kush. Overshadowed by Egypt, to the north, it was a place of uncharted breadth and depth far up the Nile, a mystery verging on myth. One thing the Egyptians did know and recorded — Kush had gold.



In recent reports and interviews, archaeologists said they had found widespread evidence that the kingdom of Kush, in its ascendancy from 2000 B.C. to 1500 B.C., exerted control or at least influence over a 750-mile stretch of the Nile Valley. This region extended from the first cataract in the Nile, as attested by an Egyptian monument, all the way upstream to beyond the fourth cataract. The area covered part of the larger geographic region of indeterminate borders known in antiquity as Nubia.



Some archaeologists theorize that the discoveries show that the rulers of Kush were the first in sub-Saharan Africa to hold sway over so vast a territory.



“This makes Kush a more major player in political and military dynamics of the time than we knew before,” said Geoff Emberling, co-leader of a University of Chicago expedition. “Studying Kush helps scholars have a better idea of what statehood meant in an ancient context outside such established power centers of Egypt and Mesopotamia.”



In Sudan, the Merowe Dam, built by Chinese engineers with French and German subcontractors, stands at the downstream end of the fourth cataract, a narrow passage of rapids and islands. The rising Nile waters will create a lake 2 miles wide and 100 miles long, displacing more than 50,000 people of the Manasir, Rubatab and Shaigiyya tribes. Most archaeologists expect this to be their last year for exploring Kush sites nearest the former riverbanks.



By this time next year, the dammed waters may be lapping at the old gold works, and archaeologists will be looking elsewhere for clues to the mystery of how remote Kush developed the statecraft to oversee a vast realm in antiquity.

U.S.A.
Muslims in U.S. report more bias

Most complaints involve workplace
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which issued the report last week, received 2,467 complaints nationwide last year. The council, which is the country's largest Islamic civil liberties group, began documenting anti-Muslim incidents after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.



Locally, workplace discrimination issues are the No. 1 complaint among Muslims. Nationally, the biggest issue is immigration, including residency and citizenship delays, said Karen Dabdoub, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Cincinnati Chapter, which held a press conference Tuesday to discuss the report.



Those complaints include employers who won't allow Muslim women to cover their heads or allow Muslims five-minute breaks for prayer. Dabdoub said she helped resolve a case last December of a Muslim woman who worked at a downtown hotel that wouldn't allow prayer breaks.



"She ended up praying in a utility closet in a restroom," she said.



Dabdoub wrote the hotel a letter, informing it of the law, and the matter was resolved the next day.



"Once employers are informed of the law, most of them will comply," she said.

New U.S. Passport Rules Postponed for at Least Six Months, due to the fact that the State Department and Homeland Security are totally inept.

The State Department two weeks ago acknowledged fumbling the first phase of the passport requirement, which began last January for air travelers. Noting that wait times for passports had climbed from three weeks to three months because of a backlog of 3 million applications, officials waived the rule until Sept. 30 for travelers who can show proof they had already applied.

Cast of Villains

'Reel Bad Arabs' Takes on Hollywood Stereotyping



LOS ANGELES -- A full house has turned out at the Directors Guild of America for the L.A. premiere of the new documentary "Reel Bad Arabs," which makes the case that Hollywood is obsessed with "the three Bs" -- belly dancers, billionaire sheiks and bombers -- in a largely unchallenged vilification of Middle Easterners here and abroad.



"In every movie they make, every time an Arab utters the word Allah? Something blows up," says Eyad Zahra, a young filmmaker who organized the screening this week with the support of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.



The documentary highlights the admittedly obsessive lifework of Jack Shaheen, a retired professor from Southern Illinois University, the son of Lebanese Christian immigrants and the author of "TV Arabs," "Reel Bad Arabs" and the upcoming "Guilty? Hollywood's Verdict on Arabs after 9/11."



In the documentary, Shaheen shows dozens of film clips to illustrate his point. Arab women? Hip-swiveling eye candy of the oasis or "bundles in black." If Arab men are not presented as buffoons, or smarmy carpet-dealers, or decadent sheiks (and oh, how the oily sultans are smitten with the blond Western womens!), then they are basically your bug-eyed hijacker-bomber.



"And not only are the Arabs dangerous, they're inept," says Shaheen, pointing to the head villain, called Salim Abu Aziz, in James Cameron's "True Lies," whom Arnold Schwarzenegger's character kills -- by launching him to his maker on the back of a missile.



The 50-minute documentary, for which Shaheen is looking for a distributor, is making the rounds at film festivals, and Shaheen says he would like to see it aired on public television. A DVD can be purchased through the Media Education Foundation.

Arabs in Film - Photo Essay




Nap Time and Playtime And Time to Learn Farsi

At 2 years old, Lanah Boissy has perfected the art of linguistic one-upmanship. Perched in a highchair at dinnertime in Sterling, she will say something in Farsi, wait for a look of bafflement from her Senegal-born parents and dissolve into giggles when they are forced to ask if she would please translate into English or their native French.



In Ashburn, Cenna Cripe, 21 months, will pucker up on cue, but only if her English-speaking mother, Christie, says "hati bossa" -- an Arabic request for a kiss. And in Annandale, Sasha Geisinger, 2, disappointed her mother somewhat when one of the first words out of her mouth was "dudu." Then Narra Geisinger learned that Sasha was using the Urdu word for milk.



Children such as these in the polyglot Washington region often surprise their parents with language feats learned in day care. The large number of foreign-born care providers in the area enables many parents to kick-start their children's knowledge of a second or even a third language from among a growing babel that includes Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Pashto, Hindi and Amharic, in addition to French and Spanish.



Even if Ella doesn't pursue Arabic in school, exposure to the ways of an Islamic household is a plus, Harris said. Eltayeh, a Muslim, likes to explain to parents why she wears a head scarf and stops for prayer five times a day. To children, she offers more subtle cultural lessons: Her emphasis on manners draws directly from her family and her religious values, Eltayeh said.



Beatriz Otero, president of CentroNia, a District-based family support group that offers early childhood education, said running a day-care business is an excellent steppingstone for immigrant women. "It gives you a certification in a way that few other entry-level jobs do," she said. In the past five years, she added, the group has helped train 800 women, most of them foreign-born, to meet national voluntary accreditation standards, involving hundreds of hours of study and apprenticeship, for early childhood instruction.



Many providers said they have a natural penchant for the job.



"In my country, we know how to take care of children," said Riffat Jabeen, a Falls Church provider from Pakistan. Her English is choppy, so parents such as Geisinger have encouraged her to speak Urdu with their children.

CENSORSHIP:
Google seeks government help to fight censorship

Google sees the dramatic increase in government Internet censorship, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, as a potential threat to its advertising-driven business model, and wants government officials to consider the issue in economic, rather than just political, terms.



Censorship online has risen dramatically the past five years, belying the hype of the late 1990s, which portrayed the Internet as largely impervious to government interference.



A study released last month by the OpenNet Initiative found that 25 of 41 countries surveyed engage in Internet censorship. That's a dramatic increase from the two or three countries guilty of the practice in 2002, says John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, who helped prepare the report.



China, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, India, Singapore and Thailand, among others, are increasingly blocking or filtering web pages, Palfrey says.



One likely source for Google's censorship idea is a paper written two years ago by Timothy Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, who argues that downloading a web page hosted in another country effectively imports a service.



Columbia's Wu said the trade pact approach is likely to be more effective when governments are guilty of blocking entire web sites or applications, such as Internet phone-calling, than when they filter specific content.



Under World Trade Organization rules, countries can limit trade for national security or public moral reasons, Wu said, exceptions that authoritarian governments would likely cite when filtering politically sensitive material.



The company's trade initiative reflects Google's increasing acceptance of the value of federal lobbying. The company didn't hire a lobbyist until 2003, according to public filings, but paid the high-powered Washington-based Podesta Group US$160,000 last year to work on Internet free-speech, tax and other issues.

Flickr censorship stirring the controversy pot?

The recent implementation of usage restriction on certain elements of the hugely popular photo-sharing Web site Flickr has caused somewhat of an uprising in its member ranks, with users in Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong and Korea all suddenly unable to specify a particular personal preference in their account settings that’s related to site-wide search parameters.



However, the ‘safe search’ restriction has predictably thrown up fervent cries of "censorship" from Flickr’s user base, with many posting protest images to the service, such as a doormat that carries the title: "I don’t want to be treated like a…" and various versions of the "Flickr Loves You" site logo doctored to read "Censr Thinks For You." Perhaps worryingly for Flickr is that these doctored images are actually of physical stickers posted in public places for all to see. Interestingly, searching for ‘censorship’ on Flickr returns a massive 16,352 related images.



owever, it is worth noting that Flickr, no longer a localised creation but part of a huge international business like Yahoo, must legally bow to the laws and restrictions imposed upon it in any and all regions where Yahoo chooses to trade. Sadly, that may mean that Flickr’s service in certain territories is in some ways restricted, but should perhaps not be viewed as a poor reflection on Flickr itself.

Censorship's New Ally: The Digital Razor

Mind you, we can easily dismiss this as a quirk of the movie industry. And we’d be wrong to do so. There’s a great moment in Thank you For Your Smoking, in which William H. Macy’s overzealous anti-tobacco crusader wants to comb through old films where Hollywood stars like Bette Davis smoked, and digitally remove their cigarettes. When asked if this was rewriting history, Macy’s character vigorously says, “No, no! We’re improving history!”



Censorship has long been a crippling pox against freedom and free expression, but today’s Digital Era makes it noiseless, secret, insidious. Like the painted commandments in George Orwell’s Animal Farm growing shorter and shorter… redone at night when the animals were sleeping.



Before history is erased, we can reflect on the burning of the Great Library by fundamentalists, the destruction of political tomes in ancient China, the book burnings in Berlin under Hitler.



The problem we face is far worse. Yesterday’s burnings required at least 451 degrees. Tomorrow’s censorship will be done not with torches, but with a search-and-replace command.

Iran Cracks Down on Dissent, Parading Examples in Streets

Iran is in the throes of one of its most ferocious crackdowns on dissent in years, with the government focusing on labor leaders, universities, the press, women’s rights advocates, a former nuclear negotiator and Iranian-Americans, three of whom have been in prison for more than six weeks.



The shift is occurring against the backdrop of an economy so stressed that although Iran is the world’s second-largest oil exporter, it is on the verge of rationing gasoline. At the same time, the nuclear standoff with the West threatens to bring new sanctions.



The hard-line administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, analysts say, faces rising pressure for failing to deliver on promises of greater prosperity from soaring oil revenue. It has been using American support for a change in government as well as a possible military attack as a pretext to hound his opposition and its sympathizers.



Some analysts describe it as a “cultural revolution,” an attempt to roll back the clock to the time of the 1979 revolution, when the newly formed Islamic Republic combined religious zeal and anti-imperialist rhetoric to try to assert itself as a regional leader.



Young men wearing T-shirts deemed too tight or haircuts seen as too Western have been paraded bleeding through Tehran’s streets by uniformed police officers who force them to suck on plastic jerrycans, a toilet item Iranians use to wash their bottoms. In case anyone misses the point, it is the official news agency Fars distributing the pictures of what it calls “riffraff.” Far bloodier photographs are circulating on blogs and on the Internet.



The country’s police chief boasted that 150,000 people — a number far larger than usual — were detained in the annual spring sweep against any clothing considered not Islamic. More than 30 women’s rights advocates were arrested in one day in March, according to Human Rights Watch, five of whom have since been sentenced to prison terms of up to four years. They were charged with endangering national security for organizing an Internet campaign to collect more than a million signatures supporting the removal of all laws that discriminate against women.



The National Security Council sent a stern three-page warning to all the country’s newspaper editors detailing banned topics, including the rise in gasoline prices or other economic woes like possible new international sanctions, negotiations with the United States over the future of Iraq, civil society movements and the Iranian-American arrests.



The three Iranian-Americans are being held in the notorious Section 209 of Evin Prison, the wing controlled by the Intelligence Ministry, and have been denied visits by their lawyers or relatives. Iran recognizes only their Iranian nationality and has dismissed any diplomatic efforts to intervene. A rally to demand their release is set for Wednesday outside the United Nations.



The three are Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant with the Open Society Institute; and Ali Shakeri, of the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding at the University of California, Irvine. A fourth, Parnaz Azima, a journalist who works for Radio Farda, an American-financed station based in Europe, has been barred from leaving the country.



To the political crackdown, Mr. Ahmadinejad adds a messianic fervor, Mr. Milani noted, telling students in Qom this month that the Muslim savior would soon return.

Blogger detention unnerves blogging community

CAIRO: Egyptian blogger Amr Sharqawi was jailed and treated brutally for taking pictures of the Shoura election board, during the alleged vote-rigging.



The harsh treatment has sent a chill through the already edgy Egyptian blogging community.



Amr Sharqawi is a thin, gentle man with spectacles and a soft voice, hardly the picture of a fiery dissident.



"I was taking pictures of the Board of Elections and a policeman hit me and broke my camera,” Sharqawi told The Daily Star Egypt. "They took me to Talkha Station where they beat me some more the first day I was there. They threatened to arrest my whole family.



Bloggers feel that the harassment has been getting worse, not better. Youssef said, "Now people read the blogs and they are much more influential so the government cares about them more. Before they were not so important so we were less afraid."



Helmy echoed this sentiment saying that bloggers are being arrested and their blogs blocked.



Youssef noted that it seemed as if Islamist bloggers in particular were targeted because, "they are the only ones who actually do anything. The liberals just want to talk and talk, which the government doesn't care about. Because Islamic bloggers want real change, they come for us."



While the bloggers are worried about themselves, they exude a deep sense of pride in what they are doing. When asked whether he would continue writing, Sharqawi laughed, saying, "Of course! As long as I am alive!"



Mido, who writes the blog "Horytna" added, "It is only fear. They can imprison us, kill us, but so what? We will never stop."

An Unprecedented Uproar Over Saudi Religious Police

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- Three members of Saudi Arabia's religious police will stand trial this week for their involvement in the death of a man in their custody, an unprecedented action against the powerful enforcers of the country's strict moral code.



The death, the second in the custody of the religious police in the past month, has triggered calls for a reevaluation of the force's role and responsibilities, and generated a media uproar -- a first in a country where criticism of the religious establishment had until recently been off-limits.



The commission is the enforcement arm of Saudi Arabia's official religious establishment, which imposes the strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, named after its 18th-century founder, Muhammad bin Abdul-Wahhab. The commission's mandate is based on the Koranic verse, "And from among you there should be a party who invite to good and enjoin what is right and forbid the wrong, and these it is that shall be successful."



The commission has about 500 offices across the kingdom and employs about 10,000 people. Members who work in the field wear badges but no special uniforms. As signs of piety, they sport scraggly beards and red-and-white checkered head scarves without black cords to hold them down. Their traditional white robes fall slightly above their ankles.



They patrol the streets to make sure shops are closed during prayer times, unrelated men and women do not mingle, and women are properly covered. Their mandate also includes enforcing a ban on prostitution, pornography and the consumption or sale of alcohol.



"People hesitate to criticize the commission because they're afraid they'll be viewed as criticizing religion," said Sabria Jawhar, the Jiddah bureau chief of the English-language Saudi Gazette. "Having a commission is part of our religion."



Saad al-Sowayan, a professor of folklore and anthropology at King Saud University in Riyadh, said Saudis have lived in fear of the commission for decades but have finally started to speak out against it.


"The signs are that the heyday of the Control Squad is perhaps over," Sowayan wrote in a recent article on the London-based Web site SaudiDebate.com. "Slowly but increasingly, irate Saudis are literally fighting back. Local newspapers have reported that within the last two years, physical attacks by the public against the Squad have been on the rise."



"People are dying in commission custody now because the commission has been brutally abusing prisoners for years but never held accountable before," Lahem said.

In Painting the Town, Russian Folk Artist Hits a Wall

In Painting the Town, Russian Folk Artist Hits a Wall
As Work Grew Political, Angered Authorities Turned to Whitewash



BOROVSK, Russia -- Not much was happening in Borovsk, population 12,000, a place of cottages slouching on grassy slopes. Then, five years ago, amateur folk artist Vladimir Ovchinnikov was possessed by a vision that the town should become one giant artist canvas.



"I had an idea that all the local painters would enlarge their works on the town's walls," said Ovchinnikov, 69, a retired construction engineer. "After all the other artists refused -- they were too sick, or too old, or they said there would be no money in it -- I approached the former mayor with this idea of painting the walls myself."



The mayor thought it was a splendid idea. So the tireless pensioner splashed images of churches, historical figures and still lifes on public buildings, private homes and walls, 100 works in all. Curious day-trippers flocked to Borovsk, just 63 miles south of Moscow, to take in the outdoor exhibition, giving the town a welcome financial boost.



It was all very captivating until the muralist recast himself as a political and satirical commentator, the self-styled Diego Rivera of Borovsk. His painting of a religious martyr proved controversial, as did a wall-size political cartoon. The official reaction quickly changed; some of his work was whitewashed.



He was born in 1938 in the Soviet republic of Tajikistan, where his father had been exiled. Rehabilitated after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, the family bought a house in Borovsk. That was as close as to the capital that certain former "enemies of the people" were allowed to live during Soviet times.



In the early, heady days, he was given 1,000 rubles, about $26, for supplies; more recently he was fined 1,000 rubles for defacing a public building. In his typically combative way, he refused to pay and filed a complaint.



Now, he says, he has begun to paint the walls of other towns, including Sevastopol and Obninsk. He has given up his vision of painting all of Borovsk.