Ahmad Humeid wrote a fascinating blog entry about his childhood infatuation with the Japanese animated series, Grendizer. I strongly related to his post, as I was one of those Arab children that grew up in the early 80’s passionately following the travails of this legendary flying robot. Take a look.
For those who care to hear my review of Salam Pax diary, here it goes:
I tremendously enjoyed the first few chapters of the book; the writing was amusing, witty and very smart. As I ventured further into the diary, the writing became somehow repetitious. Salam’s political ramblings bored me to the extent that I had to skip some pages in pursuit of something more engaging.
I think Salam Pax excelled better when he was writing mainly for his friend Raed and not for a mass audience. His writing felt somehow more genuine back then. He started losing his edge the minute he became a world-wide celebrity.
Still on the topic of reading, the book that I’m carrying around nowadays is Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.
I’m already half way through and so far it is proving to be a delight. It is a black and white illustrated novel, or comic book, that tells the story of an Iranian girl who grew up in the country during the political turmoil of the Shah’s overthrow, the Islamic revolution and the war with Iraq. It is a whimsical tale of social and political contradictions that Iranian society suffers from still. It really is a treat.
Its sequel, Persepolis II, is already out there. I must put my hands on it soon.
What Famous Leader Are You? Personality tests by similarminds.com |
I took this personality test to see which world leader I would identify with and the result was Bill Clinton. I’m not surprised, as Clinton remains my favourite US president of all time. |
If you’re a blogger, MSN might come to you and say, ‘We want to distribute you. We’ll send you traffic and we want you to run these ads on your site, and you’ll get a share of revenues on that. That’s probably an offer that many bloggers are going to be interested in because they don’t want to have to invest in creating that kind of infrastructure, and they would value the traffic.
So, if you are a blogger, will you be welling to sell out?
So the veteran leader is dead and I remain pessimistic about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Regardless of who succeeds him, I don’t foresee a major improvement for the Palestinians in the occupied territories. A diplomatic solution endorsed by the international community should have taken place long time ago, with or without Arafat. May his soul rest in peace. [Here’s some interesting background on him.]