Iraq is Such a Disappointment to Us

Not to spend too much time on this NYTimes article about how the Iraqis are letting us down by being too dead, disabled, or abroad to run the cool factories and hospitals we built for them just ’cause we’re nice like that. Most of the people who read this blog probably already read that article [...]

Is It My Imagination…

…or isn’t this woman a dead ringer for Emilio Estevez?

Emily Ruete (1844-1924) was born in Zanzibar as Sayyida Salme, Princess of Zanzibar and Oman.
Almost. Sayyida is not her name, it’s an indication that she’s supposedly a descendant of the prophet Muhammad, and I don’t know that “princess” is the most appropriate designation, but she wrote [...]

Mister Peabody Visits the Middle East in 1953

And gives Sherman a little lesson in what the CIA has been up to since then in the region. I love it!
I never realized how talky Mister Peabody and Sherman cartoons were until now. Makes it easy to replace the original dialogue with dialogue of your own, if you’re a talented voice artist. I must [...]

Mermaids of the Bronze Age

Remember my post a few months back about Islam and the eating of mermaids? A friend sent me a link to this very short news article about some research by Omani and French scientists that leads them to believe that Arabian fishermen of the Bronze Age worshipped the dugong.
Moscow, September 30, Interfax – Arabian [...]

We Invented it First, Several Centuries After Those Other Guys

From Wikipedia:
The geocentric model held sway into the early modern age; from the late 16th century onward it was gradually replaced by the heliocentric model of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler.
Whereas over in the mysterious east, which we for some reason insist on depicting as backwards and inferior:
Muhammad ibn Jābir al-Harrānī al-Battānī (Albatenius) (853-929) discovered [...]

Climate Change

It’s Blog Action Day and the topic is climate change. I personally have as good as no expertise on the subject, but here are some links to articles and posts about climate change and the Arab world.
The Arab Climate Alliance’s English page and Arabic here.
Climate change has already started harming people and ecosystems around the [...]

The Siege of Mecca by Yaroslav Trofimov

1979 was a big year in the history of relations between the US and parts of the Islamic world. In early November Iranian radicals supporting the Iranian revolution took over the US embassy in Tehran and held 53 Americans hostage. On November 20th Salafist radicals in Saudi Arabia seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca and [...]

Couple Things, Here and There

1- If you’re interested in the Rifqa Bary story, The Saint Petersburg Times online has a good article by Rifqa’s mother’s attorney, an evangelical Christian.
It will astonish many fellow conservatives as well as many on the left to learn that I, an evangelical Christian, have vigorously defended Rifqa Bary’s mother in court. And I believe [...]

Finally, Mug Available. Shirts, Too

UPDATE: if you saw this before about noon on Monday, you saw a version that had a typo in the Arabic. It is fixed now and the faulty products have been removed and good ones are there in their place. The picture below shows the real picture.
Buy the shirt and other stuff HERE at my [...]

Visit a Virtual Iraq Museum

So I finished the Gertrude Bell biography and I need some time for the information to sink in. One thing that Ms. Bell will remain known for is establishing the National Museum of Iraq. There are two Iraq museums online and I haven’t figured out what’s what with them yet.
This one, The Virtual Museum of [...]