2006 Weblog Award Finalists


Illustrative of Egypt's developing political culture, Death to the Marsha

The Lounsbury | Comments (0)
February 2, 2012 05:44 PM

As horrid as the football match disaster was, this just does not speak well : Calls to Execute Egypt's Military Ruler Echo on Cairo's Streets - NYTimes.comAccording to an eyewitness account posted online, one of the team’s star players, Mohammed Abu Trika, joined the fans in chanting for Field Marshal...[More]

Egyptian Fantasies, American NeoCon dreams

The Lounsbury | Comments (0)
February 2, 2012 05:07 PM

I spotted this intriguingly deluded and/or dishonest read of the Egyptian revolution and American policy via, if I recall, Andrew Sullivan. Although I haven't any particular faith in the Egyptian revolution, this eval is simply daft. Eric Trager: Happy Birthday To Egypt’s Doomed Revolution | The New Republic Exactly one...[More]

Bad Press? US citizens taking refuge in Embassy (Egypt)

The Lounsbury | Comments (0)
January 30, 2012 01:57 PM

This is not the kind of news one wants to have when you are a government on the edge of default, and when one is trying to gain investor confidence: U.S. Embassy in Cairo Shields 2 Americans . It really doesn't matter if the Egyptians have a point, the idea...[More]

Syria: Not Libya II, & as Abu Aardvark says moral outrage is not a plan

The Lounsbury | Comments (1)
January 29, 2012 12:56 PM

Although I was quite supportive of the Libyan intervention - on the presumption that it is very hard indeed to do worse than Libya under Qadhdhafi (a long civil war might achieve that one must admit), the naive drumbeat from Left commentators re Syria is worrisome. I very much agree...[More]

Egypt & Decline, dancing at the edge

The Lounsbury | Comments (0)
January 28, 2012 05:06 PM

An unfortunately mis-titled article, which implies a whinge-fest, but in fact is a serviceable summary of the ongoing disaster that is the faux-revolution Mamlouk coup d'etat that is Egypt: Carina Kamel: Egypt's Economic Crisis: Where Are the Promised Billions and What Will It Take for Investors to Return? Alarm bells...[More]

Returning, the ongoing Egyptian delcine

The Lounsbury | Comments (0)
January 28, 2012 03:48 PM

Amrani has an interesting note on the Egyptian government's oddly gratitutius assault on international NGOs operating there: On the US-Egypt NGO debacle - Blog - The Arabist...[More]

Washington Post tells Arab Spring to "Just Do It" with the Elections

Matthew Hogan | Comments (0)
July 2, 2011 09:26 PM

Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post, basing herself on initial elections in post communist Poland apparently working to move democracy forward despite flaws, says that the lack of fully functional electoral procedures shouldn't delay getting people as a whole into the process of participation. Otherwise the old regimes' allies and...[More]

American politics, non-existence of Arab Xians

The Lounsbury - February 3, 2012 01:02 PM | Comments (0)
Filed Under: Religious Minorities , Society & Culture , The MENA '48 , US Foreign Policy

Worth a read, came across by accident

Speaking with Palestinian-American Republican Who Confronted GOP at Debate | Politics | Religion Dispatches

Extract

They also demonstrated their ignorance of a crucial part of the world. The Middle East isn’t exclusively Muslim; Hassan, for example, points out that he and his “massive family” are part of “a vast Palestinian community… in North Florida, nearly all of them Greek Orthodox or Catholic.”

But Hassan gets the anti-Muslim bigotry, especially because it comes back to haunt him (he, an Arab Christian American, is tarred with Islamist Hamas). For those in the GOP who might be reading this, allow me to tell you: The percentage of Christians among the Palestinian population is about the same as the percentage of African Americans in the U.S.A.

For a party so concerned with America’s Christian identity, Romney and Gingrich’s dismissal of the Palestinians is part of their broader disinterest in the Muslim world, and its diversities and differences. Namely, most Muslims aren’t Arabs, and most Arab Americans are Christians. You read that correctly.




Egyptian Tourism, not getting better PR

The Lounsbury - February 3, 2012 10:58 AM | Comments (0)
Filed Under: Egypt Mamlouk Coup , North Africa , The MENA '48

Egypt just is not getting any breaks - nor creating any. Besides the football riots, we have kidnappings and violence in the Sinia and in Sharm El Sheikh and St. Catherine's area.

Gunmen Kidnap 2 Americans, Egyptian In Sinai Peninsula | Fox News
Now this is probably just your old-school Yemani type kidnapping, but along with other events, I can not see Egypt recovering its badly needed tourism revenues.

"Egyptian officials have informed us that two tourists of American citizenship have been kidnapped in Sinai," an embassy spokesperson said. "We are currently working to confirm that. In the meantime we are working with Egyptian authorities to do as much as possible to ensure the tourists' safety."

The tourists were among a group traveling between St. Catherine's Monastery, at the foot of Mount Sinai, and the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, NBC News reported.

Bedouin sources told AFP the kidnappers were demanding the release of relatives held in Egyptian jails. South Sinai security chiefs, in coordination with Bedouin elders, were in talks with the kidnappers to secure the release of the hostages.

A military plane was deployed to the area as a search operation started, Egyptian state TV said.

The kidnapping took place just days after Bedouins in north Sinai briefly seized 25 Chinese workers to demand the release of Islamist relatives detained over bombings in the peninsula between 2004 and 2006.

A French tourist was killed during a shooting in Sharm el Sheikh last weekend, raising concerns over security in the popular resort area.



Books & Media

Raja: Film (2003)

Matthew Hogan | Comments (0)

I caught this MENA-set French film by accident while aiming to see another, and misreading the schedule. My mistake angers me. Why? Because it caused me to see this flick. Make no mistake, this film, about an aging sleazoid expat...[More]

Mark Twain's "The Innocents Abroad"

Matthew Hogan | Comments (0)

Coincidentally, I re-picked up this 1867 humorous classic travelogue of Mark Twain's for a (re-)glance not too long after Mr. Netanyahu had threatened to (re-)use it for sundry and sordid Middle East polemics. The Israeli Prime Minister had planned to...[More]

Journals

Dollar naivete

The Lounsbury - May 23, 2011 10:29 AM | Comments (0)
Filed Under: Biz - Policy & Development , Biz - Private in MENA

A remarkably naive note, A Strong Dollar Isn’t Always a Good Thing - Economic View - NYTimes.comAT a recent news conference, Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, was asked about the falling dollar. He parried the question, saying that...[More]

Book Review: The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II

Matthew Hogan - July 17, 2010 09:23 PM | Comments (1)
Filed Under: Egghead Stuff , Random Personal , World War 2

Good book, with serious caveats. It was probably a bit overpraised when it was first released over a decade ago. But no one had done it before, or as well, at least in English....[More]