RIP

Another icon from my youth:

The Green Thing

You gotta read this.

A Very Interesting Piece on Egypt and Modernity

Is Islamism in decline?

Poised opposite Cairo university stands a grand statue of a traditional peasant woman (often used to depict Egypt) lifting her veil while standing next to a couchant Sphinx. The statue known as “Egypt’s Renaissance” was created in the 1920ies by the famous Egyptian sculptor Mahmoud Mokhtar and symbolizes hopes of modernity after a long history of colonization.

Today ninety years later again women start to take off their veil. Just like in the early twenties this change is not yet noticeable in the streets of the more popular neighborhoods of Cairo, but in the more affluent parts of the city it already is. In a like manner, a lot of young veiled women are following a new trend: showing some hair. Like their Iranian counterparts, wearing the headscarf this way reflects a protest against the very purpose of the veil: covering a lady’s hair.

This ‘secularizing’ trend seems to contradict with the daily news we get from the Arab world. Today all eyes are focused on the Islamic State. After the horrors of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda worldwide, the world is shocked to see an extreme and barbaric version of Islamist rule through a reign of terror in Syria and Iraq. The Islamic State is becoming an Arab World phenomenon as groups in Algeria, Egypt and Yemen pledged allegiance to the new Caliphate. There seem to be no limits to growing extremism in the Muslim World. Therefore, the question is, are more people becoming extremists or are extremists becoming more extreme? To answer this question we have to refer back to history. With the humiliating defeat of the Arabs in the 1967 War against Israel, most non-Islamist ideologies died. Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s pan-Arabism, socialism and secularism died on the battlefield, as well as the liberalism of his predecessors. The Arab world fell into an identity crisis, opening the way for the only remaining ideology: Islamism or conservative political Islam. Saudi Arabia used this momentum and its newly gained petrodollars after the oil crisis in 1973 to spread Salafism or Islam without modernity. The Muslim Brotherhood too regained ground. It was founded in 1928, four years after Turkey’s Atatürk abolished the Caliphate. Its main goal was (and continues to be) reinstalling this Caliphate. This could only be achieved by getting rid of the Western-backed Arab dictators.

The Arab revolutions of 2011 were a golden opportunity for the Islamists. Knowing that the young revolutionaries were too unorganized and idealistic, Islamists took the power. The entire Arab World looked to Egypt, where for the first time, the Muslim Brotherhood had the leverage to execute their plan and organize an Islamist society. They miserably failed.

Much more important is what is happening to the silent majority in the Arab World. And here the opposite trend slowly starts becoming clear. Fewer taxi drivers place a copy of the Koran visibly in their car. More women are taking off their veil. The young revolutionary generation is also attending prayers at the mosque less often. Most of them only denounce the political Islam preached at many mosques. Others go further and flirt with atheism. The Egyptian government doesn’t like this trend and in Alexandria even a special police taskforce has been created to arrest atheists.

As there are no credible surveys on these trends and the reasons behind it, we can for the time being, fall back on personal stories that might be representative. One such story is about a conservative family in the city of Port Said, Egypt. Two sisters in their thirties, Marwa and Heba, discovered just after the fall of President Mohamed Morsi that the books with which they grew up reading are books printed and distributed by the Muslim Brotherhood. Shocked to learn this, they started to rethink all the ideas that they formed and question the very basis of their religion. “Only after Morsi fell, I discovered that Hassan Al Banna (the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood,) wrote the foreword of the book ‘Living along the Sunni Lines’. I grew up with this book. Now I begin to doubt about everything,” Marwa said. Their veils started to become ‘trendy’, then to disappear last week.

The story of Marwa and Heba is just one of many. It demonstrates what is happening on the ground in the Arab World. The young revolutionary generation feels betrayed by the Islamists and is turning its back on them and often even religion itself. Where power and religion are one and the same, youngsters seem to reject both. This was already the case in Iran and it is happening now in the Arab World. As the current generation consists of fifty percent of the Arab population, this trend is probably the real revolution that is silently transforming the Arab World. (Emphasis mine)

Egypt has long been a leader among Arab nations, but still, I will believe it when I see it.

Good Lessons

Once again, from Facebook:

Say It Ain't So!!!

Obituary: Archibald (Archie) Andrews, 1941-2014

He was 72.

Did he and Veronica ever get married? I doubt it. That would have destroyed the whole schtick.

The Only Thing Certain...

...in life is that the older you get, the more butt ugly you become.

Thought: Do you suppose that's why there are no longer any Elvis sightings? Are people still looking for "young" Elvis?

Oh. And Jim Morrison. It's not his face that we should be looking at. Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge.

ROTFLMAO!!!!

UPDATE:  Thank God!!

And Another One Bites...

...the dust:

Folk singer Pete Singer dies at age 94

I saw him once, in a previous life, at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. I have a couple of his records.

Sigh. Over the hill. Rolling down the other side, picking up speed. Bottom in sight.

Seems every day some old icon from my youth kicks the bucket.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Almost all of the above.

One Chance At Redemption

Malala Yousafzai addresses U.N. Youth Assembly

If this little girl actually wins the Nobel Peace Prize, I will actually have respect for the Nobel organization again, until the next time.

Whoopie!!

A chance to skip school for the afternoon!!!

Hundreds of students skip class, protest cuts to education at legislature

In My Life...

..we've gone from this:



...to this:

Women march in support of legalizing prostitution ahead of landmark court case

My, my, my.

Of course, there's a song for everything:



I loved Judy Collins. My youngest sister is (or was) the spitting image of her.



Aah, the good ole days.

Waddid I Tell Ya?

Erdogan faces growing criticism

There's more to this than just a few stupid trees:

"Calls for the resignation of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan are growing louder as the violent clashes between police and demonstrators escalate."

[---]

"The protests have continued over the past few days. Erdogan has called the protestors "looters" who are being led by extremist groups.

Journalist Aktar disagrees. "It is a young, impartial and urban movement without a political agenda and without a leader," he said. Although the traditional left-wing groups are participating, they are not the driving force, he added, referring to the numerous socialist, communist and Kurdish flags that protestors have been waving for days. "No political movement or party would be capable of manipulating people at Taksim Square or in Gezi Park," he said."

[---]

"Özcan also views the citizen gatherings as a "highly diversified demonstration." All types of groups are participating in the protests, even radical ones, he notes. "But the backbone is formed by young people who have taken to the streets to protect their rights," he said. "Teenagers, school children and university students form the core of these demonstrations." [Emphasis mine]

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why I have hope for the Middle East. The dictators who are being/have been toppled were old generation types, no doubt weened on Arab Nationalism and anti-colonialism. The new crop are after something else, something that is, or at least used to be, found in Western Civilization, and a few other places, commonly known as the Rights of Man. Maybe the Turks will lead the way.

More From The Same YouTube Page

These ones, I did know what they meant:













Gyaaawd!!

A Half Century Later

I liked this song when it was new, but I sure didn't understand what it was about then. Oh, the innocence of my youth.

Pouting

Why can't I get a dinosaur named after me? I've been around long enough.

Scientists name flying dinosaur after little girl who discovered it

And BTW, I've come up with a new theory to explain my incapacity to remember stuff. The old theory still stands - that there's a force field in my doorways that erases memory of what I came into this room for. But there's another phenomena at play here, because I don't have to pass through a doorway for that to happen. I figure the gray cells in my brain are pushing up through my skull and lodging in my hair, where they no longer perform their original function. Funny how I can remember things that happened years and years ago, but not stuff that happened five seconds ago. Or was it ten seconds. I forget.

Some Creepy Stuff And Some "Oh Dear!!" And "Heavy Sigh" Stuff

Whatever are we going to do?

Lululemon recall over see-through material could lead to yoga pants shortage

You know, some people are terrified of bats. I'm not. But show me something like this and I really creep out. I don't care how many bats they eat. I guess I'm an arachnophobe. I mean, that's gotta be irrational, right?

Want your education paid for? Take something useful

"The number of Canadians pursuing useless post-secondary degrees, often on borrowed money, has apparently gotten under the Prime Minister’s skin. Mr. Harper, it is reported, is growing increasingly frustrated that there are hundreds of thousands of job vacancies that Canadian employers need filled, but remain open because Canadians lack the skills or training. This results in Canada needing hundreds of thousands of temporary foreign workers while youth unemployment languishes at double the national rate. This is putting a real damper on our economic productivity at a time when governments at every level are desperate to boost growth."

[---]

"But if governments, federal or provincial, really want to tackle this problem, it will require some very tough love indeed. Governments provide huge money to students, whether through grants, scholarships or loans. It’s time to only direct that support toward university or college programs that will meet the needs of the economy. Everyone would retain the right to go into Women’s Studies or, as I did, military history, but on your own dime. If you want the government’s help getting educated, you have to do something the national economy needs."

Well said!

Bwhahahahahaha!!

Young Saudis have some humour. Something about dinosaurs....

Forced into extinction

Some Good Ideas

Idea of merging Maritime provinces revived despite lack of political support

Might as well prepare now in advance of our booting Quebec out.

Ford urges council to let the people of Toronto vote on his future

My prediction is, if he runs, which this seems to confirm, he will win by a massive landslide and the leftie types who gloat at his falling victim to a lawfare coup will be decimated. They won't know what hit them.

Obama under pressure to make Keystone decision

Now that the ducks are lined up and his cronies have their pockets lined with TransCanada and other Canadian oil stocks, it'll be full steam ahead.

Allow youth gang members into witness protection, RCMP says

Now there's an idea that's worth considering.

Oh, Man...

...How could you not "just want to hug him". His story, if you believe it, which I do, is so inspiring, just like his voice: