Ed Webb
Profile
Assistant Professor at Dickinson College
Higher Education | Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Area, US
Summary
Did diplomacy for a while, had some fun, acquired some skills and knowledge. Then chucked it in for a career in teaching, which was completely the right move - I'm having a ball. My undergraduate degree - Arabic, Turkish, Middle East history and culture - together with those years working in government, particularly my time in Egypt, and a PhD in political science from Penn combine to make me a pretty good teacher of politics. It is all coming together in the launch of the new Middle East Studies major at Dickinson College, one of the most internationally-minded of liberal arts colleges anywhere. Life is good.
Specialties: Middle East history, languages, politics, culture. Comparative and international politics. New technology in pedagogy, including games and simulations as learning tools. Fun.
Experience
- Jul 2007 - PresentAssistant Professor / Dickinson CollegeAssistant Professor of Political Science & International Studies, Coordinator of Middle East Studies; Advisory Board Member, NITLE
- 2009 - PresentAdvisory Board Member / NITLE
- Sept 2006 - PresentVisiting Instructor / Haverford CollegeTaught International Relations and International Politics of the Middle East
- Sept 1992 - PresentDiplomatic Service officer / FCOPosted in ECD(E) (later EUD(E)), Cairo, and Eastern Department.
Education
-
2008 - 2009University of ManitobaCCK08, CCK09 in Connectivism & Connective Knowledge
-
2000 - 2007University of PennsylvaniaPhD in Political ScienceActivities: GET-UP/AFT, Graduate Parents at Penn
-
1988 - 1992University of CambridgeBA (hons) in Oriental StudiesActivities: Middle East Society, Turkish Society, CULES
- University of PennsylvaniaPh.D in Political Science
- University of PennsylvaniaM.A in Political Science
Additional Information
Websites:
Updates
-
RT @subtopes: LAPD modifies surveillance program of Muslims / http://t.co/dAVSg5Ny (via @SubMedina )
-
@Laroquod begosh & begorrah! Where's Jimmy Doohan when you need him?
-
@Laroquod it was still quite clearly a leprechaun, and it was among the most terrible things ever unleashed upon television screens
-
RT @AP: German city of Pied Piper fame facing off with rats again: http://t.co/9bgDCKjX -CC
-
@Laroquod someone has to make Q's slashfic dream starring Tom R.
-
RT @xiombarg: Remember, kids, if stock art has taught me anything, it's that women love yoga
-
RT @NoorNoor1: Back to the good old #Mubarak days: "It's either us, or the Muslim Brotherhood..." #SCAF #NDP
-
RT @Zeinobia: Alien Vs. Predator whoever wins we lose , #ShafikVsMorsi
-
RT @JonathanHaynes: Have just seen 25 blokes dressed as droogs carrying a blow-up doll. Bit disturbing #ButlinsTrip > wow
-
RT @warrenellis: Apparently, due to computer error, FREAKANGELS has just won an Eagle Award. Another for your shelf, @paul_duffield ! >fab!
-
@HallyMk1 @PatParslow @timbuckteeth much hinges on the definition of 'teachers'. Can include family, librarians, Sesame Street...
-
@DrGarcia "she is most excellent at falling on her sword & drinking hemlock"?
-
@tomgara maybe the FJP spokesman is a fan of Pam Geller or Dan Pipes?
Posts
April 25, 02:42 PM
Dusk obscures the rain-slick road,
Dead deer and tyres line our path;
I'm trying to get my kids home safe,
So why d'you have to ride my arse?
What satisfaction, what thrill, what joy,
Is worth this risk to all our lives?
Schmucks like you force me to wonder
how the species still survives.
(NB British spellings used, because I'm British. For readers of U.S. English, tyres=tires, arse=ass)
April 11, 09:16 AM
Well, at least, what we report ourselves as doing online.
Most of us don't spend our time in virtual worlds, apparently. Nor do we blog, alas.
http://www.pewinternet.org/Infographics/2010/Generations-2010-Summary.aspx
December 21, 04:00 PM
There are so many reasons to be gloomy about the future of the planet and our species, and of the US (where I currently live) in particular. But every so often something comes along to put a big grin on my face and remind me not to give up hope.
"The USS Oak Hill returned to the naval base at Virginia Beach, Va., after almost three months at sea training in Central America. As homecoming approached, the crew and the ship's family readiness group sold $1 raffle tickets to pick the sailor to be first off the ship to deliver the coveted first kiss on the dock. Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta bought 50 tickets and won, the newspaper reports. Navy officials said it was the first time on record that a same-sex couple was chosen to kiss first upon a ship's return, the Associated Press reports.
Here's how The Virginian-Pilot reported the precedent-shattering event of the post "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" era:
Her girlfriend of two years, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, was waiting when she crossed the brow. They kissed. The crowd cheered. And with that, another vestige of the policy that forced gays to serve in secrecy vanished."
My main hope lies in our ability to learn. We can get better.
November 07, 01:14 PM
August 09, 11:56 AM
I posted the following comment in response to Sarah Carr's excellent and touching blog post about the London Riots. It turned out to be more or less the blogpost I've been incubating for the past 24 hours, so I reproduce it here.
I lived at the top of Crystal Palace park for a year and a half when I moved back to London from Cairo at the end of the 1990s. Couldn’t afford to live closer in, so commuted from there to work in the centre. Commuting was one of the reasons I quit my (safe, government) job 18 months later and moved to the US. Croydon was soul-destroying then, but not as grungy and run-down as you describe it here.
On my last few visits to Austerity Britain(TM) I have been struck by both increasingly visible poverty and increasing electronic surveillance, particularly in urban areas. Public spaces are tense, fearful, surveilled. You can’t pull out a camera at a station. But their cameras are watching you from several angles. It’s not healthy at all. Orwellian, alienated.
Some on Twitter etc have been evoking the start of the Thatcher era. It strikes me that what Thatcher started, her successors have been working to complete. She proclaimed that ‘there is no such thing as society’ and then did all she could to make that true. Community, solidarity, egalitarianism – all dying or dead, for the most part. I suspect if you could ask the rioters what they’re doing, they would give some variation on a nihilist theme. Why destroy? Because they can. We have trained our young people to be acquisitive, atomized, unempathetic.
The smugness of Egyptian commentators may be unattractive or misplaced. The Egyptian state and its security agents are far, far worse than anything Britain has ever come up with. But I think Thatcher would have been laughed at for proclaiming that there is no such thing as society in Egypt. #jan25 was in part Egyptian society asserting itself against a predatory state. What we see in the UK at the moment is large-scale predation within society itself. I just hope that the clean-up crews, Turkish ‘popular committees,’ and other assertions of positive social solidarity prevail and signal the start of a different kind of rebalancing in the UK – the rebirth of real society (not Cameron’s goofy Big Society malarkey).
July 31, 01:39 AM
If one's DJ moniker is Dr Funk, one might reasonably consider oneself immune to requests for Rod Stewart, no?
Apparently, one would be in error.
May 02, 09:12 PM
Rafael Alvarado asks an excellent question (read from the bottom up). Can anyone help answer it?
April 18, 07:01 PM
The tree next to our house - I hesitate to call it 'our' tree since
it's been there for decades, seeing many families come and go - the
tree we live next to has exploded into spring fireworks over the past
few days. Amazing.
March 25, 10:18 AM
An Iraqi friend sent me the following. It is very economical. The links tell the story, the quotation provides the commentary/punchline.
------------------
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110325/NEWS02/103250335/1972
http://newamericamedia.org/2011/03/eight-years-of-occupation-in-iraq-eight-years-of-misery.php
“If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches, that is not progress. Even if you pull it all the way out, that is not progress. Progress is healing the wound, and America hasn’t even begun to pull out the knife.”
El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X)
March 21, 01:59 PM
Egyptian-based Italian economist analyses the result's of Egypt's referendum on constitutional amendments. Good material for thinking both about Egypt's particular political process at the moment and also direct democracy more generally.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/gsWy59
via Amplify.com
March 21, 01:30 AM
One doesn't have to subscribe to alarming (and probably alarmist) tales of diminishing attention spans to recognize that this sentence, given the medium in which it appears, runs the risk of being just too damn long. In blogging, brevity is usually desirable. It pays to get to the point.
This does not mean that blogs should be dry, inexpressive, unembellished. Twitter and haiku have both shown that brevity can be a spur to creativity, a productive constraint. It is possible to express a great deal in few words. Songwriting, too, imposes limits. Lyrics in most popular genres are comparable in length to short poems rather than short stories. And too often those lyrics say very little. The banal recycled phrases littering the radio dial (an old media metaphor that's just about hanging in there) tell us nothing much. But some songwriters tell us stories worth hearing. Two of the best are Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, particularly when working together as Steely Dan. You don't have to enjoy the music to appreciate the economy with which they can draw you into a world, a situation, an emotional drama in the space of the first line or two. They draw on science fiction, Hollywood (in particular film noir), and a sleazy sensibility. Their characters are seedy, their narrative style terse and ironic. Here are a few song openings that illustrate this skill in getting right into the middle of the action and create a need to know what happens next. Many are from Katy Lied (1975), The Royal Scam (1976) and Gaucho (1980): almost any song from those albums would fit here - great collections of stories. Read and enjoy. If you have particular favorite examples of the great storytelling opening, by great songwriters in any genre, I would welcome examples in the comments.Agents of the law
Luckless pedestrian
I know you're out there
With rage in your eyes and your megaphones
(Don't Take Me Alive - probably my favorite example of the economic scene-setting opening)
When Black Friday comes
I'll stand down by the door
And catch the grey men when they
Dive from the fourteenth floor
(Black Friday - striking imagery, immediately evocative of stock market crashes and financial meltdown but using concrete acts to reflect those abstractions)
Rose darling come to me
Snake Mary's gone to bed
(Rose Darling - so simple, but in 10 words we have: three characters - one with a fascinating name; the implication of illicit sex - made explicit in the next two lines; and an invitation to one of the characters that draws in the listener as well - "come to me")
Katy tried
I was halfway crucified
I was on the other side
Of no tomorrow
You walked in
And my life began again
Just when I'd spent the last piaster
I could borrow
(Dr Wu - again, three characters: here Katy, the person the song is addressed to, and the narrator; note how 'piaster' economically places us in exotic territory for a western audience: the whole song is a kind of bitter-sweet orientalist fantasy)
I remember the thirty-five sweet goodbyes
When you put me on the Wolverine
Up to Annandale
(My Old School - this could end well, this could end badly - this being Becker & Fagen, the latter is a safe bet)
Charlie Freak had but one thing to call his own
Three weight ounce pure golden ring no precious stone
(Charlie Freak - you know this will end badly for poor Charlie)
So in love the preacher's face turned red
Soon everybody knew the thing was dead
He shouts, she bites, they wrangle through the night
(Haitian Divorce - summary of a hot-burning, fast-burning-out romance in three lines; the fourth line puts us into the interminable present of a failed marriage)
Where did the bastard run
Is he still around?
Now you gotta tell me everything you did baby
(Everything You Did - real menace here: will the narrator take revenge?)
We're gonna break out the hats and hooters
When Josie comes home
We're gonna rev up the motor scooters
When Josie comes home to stay
We're gonna park in the street
(Josie - wow, who is this girl? What else are they going to do? Bet it will be fun)
Way back when
In Sixty-seven
I was the dandy
Of Gamma Chi
Sweet things from Boston
So young and willing
Moved down to Scarsdale
Where the hell am I?
(Hey Nineteen - one of many great later Dan songs about aging gracelessly; nostalgia established from the first three words)
6:05
Outside the stadium
Special delivery
For Hoops McCann
(Glamor Profession - drug dealing in Hollywood; straight into the action)
The wind was driving in my face
The smell of prickly pear
[My rival - show me my rival]
The milk truck eased into my space
Somebody screamed somewhere
(My Rival - pure film noir)
Johnny's playroom
Is a bunker filled with sand
(Third World Man - what's Johnny playing at?)
Bad news breaking in 18A
Missy's kitty turn inside out she say
(Two Against Nature - now that's just not right)
It must have been my lucky Thursday
Your dad went on that spree
Before the crew could put out the fires
You hopped a bus for NYC
(Janie Runaway - watch out, Janie! Here's a whole news report about a drunken rampage, a fire, a runaway teenager plus the perspective of the narrator/predator introduced in four lines.)
(Images and lyrics from www.steelydan.com)
March 19, 05:15 PM
But might there not be an illusion in even the loftiest interpretation of the word objectivity? For in this sense the word implies a state of mind in the historian in which he contemplates an event so purely, with all its motives and all its consequences, that it has no effect on his subjectivity. It connotes that aesthetic phenomenon, that detachment from personal interest by which a painter, in a stormy landscape threatened by lightning and thunder or on an angry sea, perceives his own inner image; it connotes complete immersion in things. But it is superstitious to suppose that the image which things reveal to a man so attuned reproduces their empirical reality. Or are we to suppose that in these moments things actively sketch, paint, or photograph themselves, so to speak, upon a purely passive mind? This would be a mythology, and a bad mythology at that.
~ "History in the Service and Disservice of Life" in Unmodern Observations (Yale: 1990), 115
March 19, 11:08 AM
I love this pithy analysis of why it is so hard to explain complex events to general audiences or readerships.
Start at the bottom, as with all twitter feeds: Arclight works in the nuclear industry and has been providing some great technical analysis of the Fukushima disaster.March 17, 10:36 AM
(Or visualization, if you must)
A great teaching aid for explaining the limits of inference, from the Sources And Methods blog. Thanks to Erik Hanson, who shared this via Google Reader & Buzz - https://profiles.google.com/erikalanhanson#erikalanhanson/aboutAmplify’d from sourcesandmethods.blogspot.com
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/gSs1UR
via Amplify.com
March 09, 02:52 PM
From Cory Doctorow's Craphound via Erik Hanson's Google Reader items shared on Google Buzz (https://profiles.google.com/erikalanhanson/about). Whole lot of Google going on.
O tempora o moresAmplify’d from imgur.com
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/dKiTjr
via Amplify.com
March 07, 09:58 PM
To all the amazing women everywhere: thank you.
Info on events here: http://www.internationalwomensday.com/
Image: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images
March 02, 01:39 PM
Tom is often preposterous. Today he may have achieved preposterousness (preposterosity?) of such epic proportions that it disrupts the fabric of space-time. Don't read it with coffee or any other drink close to hand if you value your reading device - spraying often damages electronics.
If you must read it, read this also - http://inanities.org/2011/03/this-is-just-the-start-and-it-never-fucking-ends/ And then if you want a more informed take on how the wave of revolutions came about, read @3arabawy here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/02/egypt-revolution-mubarak-wall-of-fear
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bsgdj
via Amplify.com
February 28, 11:51 PM
'Simplistic' does not mean the same as 'simple.'
'Militaristic' does not mean the same as 'military.'
February 22, 11:07 PM
Dictator Playbook - 2011 edition
- Phase 1
- I hear you.
- Now shut up and go home so my thugs can arrest you all one by one.
- Who's your daddy?
- Jeep. Umbrella.
- Still here, eh? What's wrong with you? Did you see the umbrella?
- I know, it must be:
- Al Jazeera
- Yankee imperialism
- Al Qa'ida
- Psychedelic drugs
- Al Jazeera
- British imperialism
- Zionist conspiracies
- Al Jazeera
- Honey, did you remember to refuel the jet after your last trip to Monte Carlo?
- The rest is silence
Posts
April 25, 02:42 PM
Dusk obscures the rain-slick road,
Dead deer and tyres line our path;
I'm trying to get my kids home safe,
So why d'you have to ride my arse?
What satisfaction, what thrill, what joy,
Is worth this risk to all our lives?
Schmucks like you force me to wonder
how the species still survives.
(NB British spellings used, because I'm British. For readers of U.S. English, tyres=tires, arse=ass)
April 11, 09:20 AM
Well, at least, what we report ourselves as doing online.
Most of us don't spend our time in virtual worlds, apparently. Nor do we blog, alas.
http://www.pewinternet.org/Infographics/2010/Generations-2010-Summary.aspx
April 10, 01:31 PM
Every year the American Library Association's list of 'challenged' books makes an interesting cultural benchmark, seeing what parents (usually) are complaining about finding on the shelves and why. This year's list has the Hunger Games Trilogy at number three, providing a hook for this news story - thank you, Hollywood.
I'm more interested to note that some of the classics continue to make this list of honour - Brave New World and To Kill a Mockingbird are both hanging in there.
This year we lose old friend And Tango Makes Three. I hope this is a sign of less bigotry toward unconventional families. But I bet it will be back. Perhaps when they make the movie.
I'm more interested to note that some of the classics continue to make this list of honour - Brave New World and To Kill a Mockingbird are both hanging in there.
This year we lose old friend And Tango Makes Three. I hope this is a sign of less bigotry toward unconventional families. But I bet it will be back. Perhaps when they make the movie.
April 01, 01:36 AM
March 04, 05:54 PM
I've been traveling in Egypt and Tunisia since mid-January. I'm blogging about it over here.
February 02, 06:28 PM
Tahrir, 2 Feb 2012, a set on Flickr.
Photos from the 30 year commemoration of the Hama massacre and Ahly protests.
December 21, 04:06 PM
There are so many reasons to be gloomy about the future of the planet and our species, and of the US (where I currently live) in particular. But every so often something comes along to put a big grin on my face and remind me not to give up hope.
"The USS Oak Hill returned to the naval base at Virginia Beach, Va., after almost three months at sea training in Central America. As homecoming approached, the crew and the ship's family readiness group sold $1 raffle tickets to pick the sailor to be first off the ship to deliver the coveted first kiss on the dock. Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta bought 50 tickets and won, the newspaper reports. Navy officials said it was the first time on record that a same-sex couple was chosen to kiss first upon a ship's return, the Associated Press reports.
Here's how The Virginian-Pilot reported the precedent-shattering event of the post "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" era:
Her girlfriend of two years, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, was waiting when she crossed the brow. They kissed. The crowd cheered. And with that, another vestige of the policy that forced gays to serve in secrecy vanished."
My main hope lies in our ability to learn. We can get better.
December 05, 01:07 PM
Apparently Philip Glass is very alive to the connections between his opera and current politics. You can read briefly about his interaction with Occupy Wall Street last week here.
An ironic note I forgot to include in my original post. The major sponsor of simulcasts from the Met is Bloomberg.
An ironic note I forgot to include in my original post. The major sponsor of simulcasts from the Met is Bloomberg.
November 20, 01:35 AM
If there's anything more 1% than opera, I'm not sure what it is. It's expensive to put on, expensive to watch, and very elitist. But it wasn't always that way - it is historically a popular artform, meaning of the people and for the people, even if not by the people.
I'm not on opera-goer or even much of an opera-lover. But I'd go a long way to hear anything Philip Glass does. So I was very fortunate yesterday to be able to enjoy a live HD simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera of NYC via a cinema in Harrisburg of his great opera about the South African years of Mohandas Gandhi, Satyagraha.
It's a minimalist opera in Sanskrit. It's probably not what people are automatically reaching for when they look for protest songs for Occupy Wall St. But I think it has its place in the music of 2011, a year of global popular protest movements. As my friend and colleague Amy Wlodarski has pointed out, #Occupy is a diverse movement with a diverse soundtrack. But Gandhi's strategy of non-violent protest, putting bodies in public space to defend beliefs and values, has marked all this year's remarkable uprisings. Truth force, the act of witnessing, the end and the means entwined - it's in the streets, and it was there in beautiful, spectacular power in the Met's production.
Opera is spectacle above all, and must be witnessed, so I'm not going to try to describe what I saw and heard. Rather I'd like to draw readers' attention to some of the meaning of the waves of Sanskrit that washed over audiences in NYC and around the world:
I don't know that we're going to see flash mobs springing up around the world to sing excerpts from the Bhagavad Gita in solidarity with the poor and oppressed. But wouldn't it be a better, saner world, if that were to happen?
I'm not on opera-goer or even much of an opera-lover. But I'd go a long way to hear anything Philip Glass does. So I was very fortunate yesterday to be able to enjoy a live HD simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera of NYC via a cinema in Harrisburg of his great opera about the South African years of Mohandas Gandhi, Satyagraha.
It's a minimalist opera in Sanskrit. It's probably not what people are automatically reaching for when they look for protest songs for Occupy Wall St. But I think it has its place in the music of 2011, a year of global popular protest movements. As my friend and colleague Amy Wlodarski has pointed out, #Occupy is a diverse movement with a diverse soundtrack. But Gandhi's strategy of non-violent protest, putting bodies in public space to defend beliefs and values, has marked all this year's remarkable uprisings. Truth force, the act of witnessing, the end and the means entwined - it's in the streets, and it was there in beautiful, spectacular power in the Met's production.
Opera is spectacle above all, and must be witnessed, so I'm not going to try to describe what I saw and heard. Rather I'd like to draw readers' attention to some of the meaning of the waves of Sanskrit that washed over audiences in NYC and around the world:
Between theory and practice, some talk as they were two — making a separation and a difference between them. Yet wise men know that both can be gained in applying oneself whole heartedly to one. For the high estate attained by men of contemplative theory, that same state achieve the men of action. So act as the ancient of days old, performing works as spiritual exercise.
With senses freed, the wise man should act,
longing to bring about the welfare and coherence
of the world. Therefore, perform unceasingly
the works that must be done, for the
man detached who labors on to the highest
must win through. This is how the saints attained
success. Moreover, you should embrace
action for the upholding, the welfare of your
own kind. Whatever the noblest does, that too
will others do: the standard that he sets all the
world will follow.
In what for others is night, therein is the manAnd Gandhi's final prayer, alone on the stage, with Dr Martin Luther King foreshadowed behind him, ends thus:
of self-restraint wide awake, separate from passion
and hate, self-possessed and drawing near
to calm serenity. This is the athlete of the spirit,
whose ground remains unmoved, whole soul
stands firmly on it. This is the fixed, still state
which sustains even at the time of death the athletes
of the spirit, who even then set forth, some
to return, some never to return. Outstanding is
he whose soul views in the selfsame way comrades
and enemies, loving all alike.
I come into being age after age and take aThe whole libretto is worth reading, and is not long.
visible shape and move a man with men for the
protection of good, thrusting the evil back and
setting virtue on her seat again.
I don't know that we're going to see flash mobs springing up around the world to sing excerpts from the Bhagavad Gita in solidarity with the poor and oppressed. But wouldn't it be a better, saner world, if that were to happen?
November 07, 01:15 PM
via flickr.com
Photo courtesy of @bruces flickr stream
November 02, 11:50 AM
Congratulations to Tunisia on the first post-revolutionary election. I'll be posting on En-Nahda's victory soon. For now I am thinking more about Egypt's upcoming elections. I recommend the great explanation of the new electoral system by Egyptian political scientist Mazen Hassan here.
As Mazen points out, the system favours strong parties, which in the long run might be a good thing. In the short run it will disadvantage most of the revolutionaries and help the Muslim Brotherhood most of all. Note also his prediction of increasing polarization between Islamist and secular camps. The constitutional debates will be fierce. This is likely to push the Brotherhood and Salafists to cooperate, even though they have real and important differences. On the other hand, all predictions must come with heavy caveats - divisions within camps could be as important as those between.
As Mazen points out, the system favours strong parties, which in the long run might be a good thing. In the short run it will disadvantage most of the revolutionaries and help the Muslim Brotherhood most of all. Note also his prediction of increasing polarization between Islamist and secular camps. The constitutional debates will be fierce. This is likely to push the Brotherhood and Salafists to cooperate, even though they have real and important differences. On the other hand, all predictions must come with heavy caveats - divisions within camps could be as important as those between.
August 09, 12:00 PM
I posted the following comment in response to Sarah Carr's excellent and touching blog post about the London Riots. It turned out to be more or less the blogpost I've been incubating for the past 24 hours, so I reproduce it here.
I lived at the top of Crystal Palace park for a year and a half when I moved back to London from Cairo at the end of the 1990s. Couldn’t afford to live closer in, so commuted from there to work in the centre. Commuting was one of the reasons I quit my (safe, government) job 18 months later and moved to the US. Croydon was soul-destroying then, but not as grungy and run-down as you describe it here.
On my last few visits to Austerity Britain(TM) I have been struck by both increasingly visible poverty and increasing electronic surveillance, particularly in urban areas. Public spaces are tense, fearful, surveilled. You can’t pull out a camera at a station. But their cameras are watching you from several angles. It’s not healthy at all. Orwellian, alienated.
Some on Twitter etc have been evoking the start of the Thatcher era. It strikes me that what Thatcher started, her successors have been working to complete. She proclaimed that ‘there is no such thing as society’ and then did all she could to make that true. Community, solidarity, egalitarianism – all dying or dead, for the most part. I suspect if you could ask the rioters what they’re doing, they would give some variation on a nihilist theme. Why destroy? Because they can. We have trained our young people to be acquisitive, atomized, unempathetic.
The smugness of Egyptian commentators may be unattractive or misplaced. The Egyptian state and its security agents are far, far worse than anything Britain has ever come up with. But I think Thatcher would have been laughed at for proclaiming that there is no such thing as society in Egypt. #jan25 was in part Egyptian society asserting itself against a predatory state. What we see in the UK at the moment is large-scale predation within society itself. I just hope that the clean-up crews, Turkish ‘popular committees,’ and other assertions of positive social solidarity prevail and signal the start of a different kind of rebalancing in the UK – the rebirth of real society (not Cameron’s goofy Big Society malarkey).
August 07, 11:33 AM
Oxfam's useful map of food stress points (http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/food-price-volatility-map) shows very few such points in the Middle East & North Africa. This is quite striking, given the role of food costs in protests across the region over the past several decades, including this year. Is the absence due to Oxfam's methodology, due to the comparatively greater desperation of situations elsewhere, or some other factor?
July 31, 01:39 AM
If one's DJ moniker is Dr Funk, one might reasonably consider oneself immune to requests for Rod Stewart, no?
Apparently, one would be in error.
July 09, 12:27 PM
There's nothing like the desert.
Amplify’d from picasaweb.google.com
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/nzukkf
June 10, 09:40 AM
June 10, 02:06 AM
This gif appeared on a post on the always interesting Dangerous Minds blog, without attribution (so far - a couple of us asked in the comments section). The post is about a fake eHarmony video by someone pretending to really, really, really love cats. It's amusing enough, I guess, as fake videos go. But the gif is just perfect.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/mjyCfY
May 31, 09:04 AM
I know there is no antidote, really - nationalism is too useful for state elites everywhere to keep the rest of us in line. But still, there ought to be one. This might help a bit.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/jRUi5x
May 28, 09:24 PM
I will develop this further, I think. See also the discussion on @LisaMLane's blog about citations here: http://lisahistory.net/wordpress/?p=926
Comments welcome.
Comments welcome.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/j6iSwG
May 25, 03:29 PM
One of my favorite things in the world is a 'thank you' note from a student. The one I got today came with a very fancy box of Guylian chocolate, which is absolutely very welcome. But the note is what I get to keep, and the satisfaction it represents of having been useful to someone.
Such notes almost always come from those students whom it is no burden to teach and mentor, of course. The pleasure is in doing the job. The note is the pleasant, lingering aftertaste. http://bit.ly/jLRZuH
May 25, 03:28 PM
For academics, this is a better time of year to make resolutions than the end of December, since that falls in the middle of the working year. So now that my last grades are submitted, and I can turn to the projects left uncompleted during the school year and the new ones for the summer and beyond, I'll be devoting some attention to re-assessing priorities, habits etc.
Resolution 1: get back to using Amplify more. It's all about the conversation, after all. http://bit.ly/mGVuwJ
May 22, 11:51 PM
A Yemeni friend emailed me the following. I relay it with no further comment:
Good Morning / evening Ladies & Gentle men,
Hope you are doing well and everything is going as you like.
The purpose of this email is to clarify the position of the Yemeni youth regarding the trapping of foreign diplomats inside the UAE embassy today (U.S., EU, Gulf and others) by Pro President Saleh armed-thugs ( http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/201152216373928689.html).
This happened while Yemenis and the whole world was waiting for them to head toward the presidential palace to reach a historical political solution for the revolution that have started over a 100 days ago in Yemen. Millions of people ( Men & WOMEN) have been out in the streets demanding the president to step-down after a 33 years of an authoritarian regime ( Ex Friday May,15th http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_bLpdznHoQ) lead Yemen to be one of the poorest countries in the world with more than 40 % of the population living on less than 2.00 dollars a day. That is while the wealth of the president and his regimes exceeds billions of dollars; stolen from the resources of Yemen. Yemenis have been in the streets totally peacefully and have a proven an attitude that we are not exaggerating if we think we deserve the Nobel prize for peace; 68 million weapons are in the hands of the people and NOT a single bullet was shot by the people; running very peaceful revolution. While more than 184 protesters were killed and thousands of injuries in different attacks by the security forces and regime snippers. In one Friday alone, more than 52 were killed and over 500 were injured when a security snippers( wearing civic clothes) opened fire at protesters after they finished their Friday prayer in Change Square in Sanaa.
What happened Yesterday was the following:
Saleh government high officials made some of their armed-thugs go surround the UAE embassy in Yemen while the world diplomats were inside to prevent them from going to the presidential palace to make Saleh sign the GCC initiative that will lead to him stepping down in thirty days. This was not just a real violation of all the international and diplomacy norms and morality, but an insult to the culture of all Yemenis. We , by NO WAY, agree with such attitude, accept it or tolerate it. Our culture of hospitably and kindness toward anyone made us a shamed to see such a behavior happen in our land and ordered and supported by President Saleh. If this says anything, it tells you how much we have been suffering from this regime and what he is willing to do to remain in power; each and every ugly dirty shamful behavior.This happened while the people of Yemen were celebrating the 21st anniversary of the Unification of Yemen.!!!
We , The Youth of Yemen, truly apologize for such irresponsible militant behavior that happed by a regime willing to kill even all Yemenis to stay in power. This does not represent us nor our culture, nor our religion or our morality. There is only one group in Yemen who would agree with such behavior in addition to the regime; It is Al-qaeda.
As we strongly condemn such a behavior that put the life of international diplomats in danger, we ask you for your support in gaining our freedom and right to have a democratic peaceful Yemen. We have been suffering and witnessing the death of our family members, friends and colleagues in our PEACEFUL path toward freedom and there is NO WAY we are stepping one move backward.
Saleh Yesterday made a speech that can literally be considered a declaration of war among the Yemeni people and we are expecting things to get more violent in the next few days, but we are committed to remain a peaceful revolution. We will continue our struggle toward a democratic country inspired by the global values and the peaceful struggles toward freedoms. But we need a lot of international support. The international aid that is still flowing to the country is umbilical cord to Saleh's regime and using military assistance to oppress civil protesters. Yemen's situation is complicated and Saleh is leading the country toward a chaos that if the international community doesn't do an immediate strong action to stop it will be less controllable in the future. And we are worry the situation will reach a point as Martin Luther King also described once " "The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence."
More importantly, and again as Martin Luther King said once " A threat to justice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere", we believe it is the same in Yemen. We call on all those who believe in life, one with dignity, to support Yemeni people in their struggle. Injustice in Yemen, serves NO ONE in the world but those who have extremist ideas.
We totally understand the western concern of Al-qaeda spread in Yemen if Saleh leaves, but we can assure you 100 % that we are NOT knocking Saleh down to replace him with Anwar Al-awlaki or a like. The success of this revolution will be one of the best strategy to fight Al-qaeda in Yemen. It will enhance the peaceful processes of engaging in political life and will make the responsibility of any government, the responsibility of all Yemenis. Saleh's wars against Al-qaeda for the last 10 years were never about who will in charge of Yemen. Instead, it was more about who will be in charge of Al-qaeda.Only him and them have this much violence agenda in their mind. And we even have hundreds of evidences that he was NO serious in this war; except to get more money, legitimacy and military aid. People are the real allies, not dictators. Dictators come and go and only people remain.
Again, the purpose of this email is just to apologize to the People of GCC, USA And EU of what happened by Saleh and his regime. This , again, by no way represent us. And the best way to make sure no such irresponsible action happens again, is to support the Yemeni people in their peaceful legitimate demands and desires in having a life; one with dignity.
Prayers for Yemen and Thank You very much for your time.
In the name of Freedom,
Yemeni Youth Activists
May 20, 10:29 PM
elearnspace › This will be fun: Mother of all MOOCs
I probably don't have time for this.
I just signed up anyway.
All learning, all the time.
Posts
Tags: Tunisia transparency corruption
Annotations:
-
The ministry stressed that educators should refrain from disseminating any particular ideologies, and strongly advised that singing, acting, and painting – as well as other activities that in recent instances had been labeled by educators as “forbidden” – be avoided, as well.
-
“We must abide by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which bans any sort of ideological persuasion [when teaching], whether political or religious. We have international commitments to provide favorable learning conditions, and we should abide by them,”
Annotations:
-
consuming more and more of its precious petroleum resources, and within a decade may have to begin cutting back on its oil exports to the rest of the world
-
In a recent report entitled, “Burning to Keep Cool: The Hidden Energy Crisis in Saudi Arabia,” Chatham House researchers Glada Lahn and Prof. Paul Stevens said unchecked growth in energy consumption in Saudi Arabia was a “cause for international concern.” If it continues at its present rate, this would threaten the Kingdom’s ability to stabilize world oil markets.
-
Saudi crude export capacity would fall by about 3 million bpd to under 7 million bpd by 2028 unless domestic energy demand growth is checked
-
Saudi Arabia currently relies on oil revenues for about 80 percent of its government spending
-
Plans to add renewable power would help maintain fiscal balance for another two or three years, but that’s all
-
Saudi Arabia hopes to buy itself some time with major energy conservation efforts. Saudi Aramco is pursuing an initiative in cooperation with the Kingdom’s utilities and business sector to generate massive energy savings on as rapid a timetable as possible. This initiative includes moves into renewable power sources like solar and wind, plus efforts to slash energy waste and duplication and create a business culture sensitive to energy efficiency
-
Chatham House believes “huge economic, social and environmental gains from energy conservation are possible in Saudi Arabia” but it cautions that the longstanding Saudi tradition of low energy prices and the Kingdom’s sluggish bureaucracy pose “challenges” to implementing needed pricing and regulatory reforms.
-
Saudi Arabia is aiming to generate about 10 percent of its power needs from solar energy by the year 2020
Tags: KSA Saudi energy environment economy development renewables
Annotations:
-
video was obtained by the FBI last year, and released today by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
As anyone starting a revolution knows, the institution that really controls a country - after its legislature - is the TV station.
Tags: twitter
Posts
October 30, 01:07 AM
October 29, 10:01 AM
Open Court (2010), Paperback, 288 pages
October 05, 08:51 PM
Middletown, CT : Wesleyan University Press, 2009.
September 21, 03:28 PM
O Books (2009), Paperback, 160 pages
August 12, 02:58 PM
University Of Chicago Press (2000), Edition: 1, Paperback, 459 pages
January 07, 12:54 PM
edwebb's review: "A passionate exhortation to teachers to make the humanities relevant to the lives of their students - indeed, to help make their encounter with great works of artistic production a life-changing event. There is some wisdom here, and some entertaining and thought-provoking discussion of certain works - he's good on Wordsworth, in particular. But the whole is marred by an unfortunate tendency to generalize negatively about certain categories of activity. He is almost entirely dismissive of cultural studies and the value of critical examination of popular culture in teaching. And he starts with some rather hackneyed alarmism around the effect of digital technologies on the present generation of students - short attention span, easily distracted, demanding entertainment rather than searching for knowledge etc. Some of that may be true for some students, but the point is to mobilize the technology to guide students to those life-changing experiences, not to fear it. Just like books, digital media are learning technologies that can be used well or badly."
Bloomsbury USA (2005), Paperback, 160 pages
Bloomsbury USA (2005), Paperback, 160 pages
December 15, 12:53 AM
Metropolitan Books (2008), Edition: S&s Hdcvr, Paperback, 288 pages
December 15, 12:47 AM
edwebb's review: "Utterly essential to understanding not only the television age, but also the age we inhabit now, of social networking via digital technology and all the other good stuff going on around us. The work is utterly contemporary, very fresh, speaks to the now. Particularly powerful insights on education (and for educators). Read it!"
Bantam Books (1967), Paperback
Bantam Books (1967), Paperback
December 07, 09:24 PM
Heinemann Educ. (1981), Paperback, 118 pages
November 14, 04:46 PM
Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times: The Citizenry and the Breakdown of Democracy by Nancy Bermeo
Princeton University Press (2003), Paperback, 272 pages
November 14, 04:45 PM
New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere (Middle East Studies) by Dale F. Eickelman
Indiana University Press (2003), Edition: 2nd, Paperback, 213 pages
November 14, 04:45 PM
Columbia University Press (2007), Paperback, 320 pages
November 14, 04:45 PM
Palgrave Macmillan (2000), Paperback, 296 pages
November 13, 06:03 PM
edwebb's review: "Much what one would expect from Mr. Bennett. Which is to say, wry, witty, gently mocking and yet utterly uncynical. Much like George Bernard Shaw's play "The Apple Cart", this novella gives the impression that it has been written by a republican who nevertheless has some sympathy, even admiration, for those who have to perform the monarchical role.
You can read any number of synopses elsewhere, so I won't bother you with that here. I think the point is that if you love books - and if you are reading this, chances are you do - then you will appreciate the quiet passion for reading displayed here (and projected onto an uncommon subject). A quick read - a literary snack rather than a feast - but a very pleasing one."
Picador (2008), Paperback, 128 pages
Picador (2008), Paperback, 128 pages
October 20, 10:53 PM
Hill and Wang (2008), Edition: 1st, Paperback, 160 pages
October 20, 10:53 PM
Hill and Wang (2006), Paperback, 144 pages
October 20, 10:52 PM
Pantheon (2005), Paperback, 192 pages
Posts
January 07, 12:54 PM
edwebb's review: "A passionate exhortation to teachers to make the humanities relevant to the lives of their students - indeed, to help make their encounter with great works of artistic production a life-changing event. There is some wisdom here, and some entertaining and thought-provoking discussion of certain works - he's good on Wordsworth, in particular. But the whole is marred by an unfortunate tendency to generalize negatively about certain categories of activity. He is almost entirely dismissive of cultural studies and the value of critical examination of popular culture in teaching. And he starts with some rather hackneyed alarmism around the effect of digital technologies on the present generation of students - short attention span, easily distracted, demanding entertainment rather than searching for knowledge etc. Some of that may be true for some students, but the point is to mobilize the technology to guide students to those life-changing experiences, not to fear it. Just like books, digital media are learning technologies that can be used well or badly."
Bloomsbury USA (2005), Paperback, 160 pages
Bloomsbury USA (2005), Paperback, 160 pages
December 15, 12:47 AM
edwebb's review: "Utterly essential to understanding not only the television age, but also the age we inhabit now, of social networking via digital technology and all the other good stuff going on around us. The work is utterly contemporary, very fresh, speaks to the now. Particularly powerful insights on education (and for educators). Read it!"
Bantam Books (1967), Paperback
Bantam Books (1967), Paperback
November 13, 06:03 PM
edwebb's review: "Much what one would expect from Mr. Bennett. Which is to say, wry, witty, gently mocking and yet utterly uncynical. Much like George Bernard Shaw's play "The Apple Cart", this novella gives the impression that it has been written by a republican who nevertheless has some sympathy, even admiration, for those who have to perform the monarchical role.
You can read any number of synopses elsewhere, so I won't bother you with that here. I think the point is that if you love books - and if you are reading this, chances are you do - then you will appreciate the quiet passion for reading displayed here (and projected onto an uncommon subject). A quick read - a literary snack rather than a feast - but a very pleasing one."
Picador (2008), Paperback, 128 pages
Picador (2008), Paperback, 128 pages
October 20, 10:47 PM
edwebb's review: "A book that promises more than it can deliver.
Issam Jameel's return to post-invasion Iraq should provide us with insights from street level into the rearrangement of social life, the day-to-day struggles of people trying to get by in a ruined economy, the increased salience of sectarian identities, and the other crucial details that will affect whether Iraq will bounce back as a viable state. What Jameel's book offers in fact is some disjointed observations and rather superficial impressions of these matters. But two factors get in the way of the narrative: language and religion.
I read and write Arabic, but would not attempt to write a book-length memoir in it, so I can only applaud Jameel's efforts to write his observations in English. However, were I to attempt such a task, I would ask competent native speakers to review every aspect of my manuscript, or insist that my publisher do so. The introduction thanks a Ms Salmon and a Mrs Babbage for their work revising the manuscript, but the thanks is ill-deserved, sad to say. Often the language is stilted and retains what to any speaker of Arabic are obvious word-for-word translations of Arabic grammatical forms. The reader can get past this, if dedicated enough. But surely, if the book is worth publishing at all, it is worth getting things like that right. A competent editor would also have given the author some pointers on structure and pacing that would have gone a long way toward letting the power of the situation and the struggles of the country he returned to as a semi-foreigner shine through more strongly.
The religious factor is more subtle, but important nonetheless. Jameel is a convert from Islam to Christianity, which he tells us a little about. What is possibly not clear to a general audience, at whom this book is presumably aimed, is what the ramifications of that are, and he does not help us much. There are descriptions of his debates with his brothers Sami and Mohamed about religion, in which he shows scant regard for Islam, characterizing their positions as 'radical' and 'fundamentalist.' Well, OK, maybe they are radicalized by the occupation - there's a lot of that about - but it would have been much more helpful to explore their views, rather than to write them off in the way he does.
In sum - there are some moments in here, some nuggets worth digging for. But the whole is disappointing, let down by a banal writing style and a lack of editorial guidance. We need more eye-witness accounts from Iraq; but we also need better ones."
Modern History Press (2008), Paperback, 212 pages
Modern History Press (2008), Paperback, 212 pages
Posts
Posts
April 08, 12:34 AM
April 07, 11:53 PM
@briangreene: "Al Green dropped an E. He was born Albert Greene 66 years ago this week coming."
April 07, 11:01 PM
April 07, 10:43 PM
November 07, 11:13 AM
Some energy for Sunday in the office
March 17, 11:07 PM
smoove
March 17, 10:45 PM
Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky?
March 17, 10:28 PM
@crowjane: that's a great version. Phil Lynott was a great loss.
March 15, 04:54 PM
Might have to check out this album from last year
March 15, 10:13 AM
@TheSun: "Ruff & Tuff" - you're really picking 'em today!
March 15, 09:57 AM
@TheSun: ""Love Czars II", Sa-Ra f/Jay Electronica & Ta'Raach - TheSun's up..." great find!
March 15, 09:48 AM
oh, yeah
March 09, 11:02 AM
It's only talk > amazing stick work as always from Tony
March 08, 11:29 PM
@nbr: "@DrFunkypants the big hit of my 20-year high school reunion" > damn, that musta been a fine reunion
March 08, 10:12 AM
@nbr: "i'm posting this because i think @DrFunkypants and @edwebb might like this" > you know it!
March 07, 11:36 PM
Ahhh, yeah! - thanks @nbr for turning me on to this
March 07, 04:17 PM
@courosa: "Note to self - don't go out like Fred Jones ..." > I don't see it being your fate, somehow
March 04, 11:44 PM
we work well together, but often we're apart...
March 04, 01:27 AM
@realtyman: "Time for some Hammond B3!" I'll second that
March 03, 05:21 PM
You'll find you get what you need
March 01, 11:56 PM
Elektronische Muzik ist viel spaß!
February 28, 09:36 PM
You know it's gonna be...
February 23, 12:35 AM
digging these guys at the moment - sucker for vocal harmonies
February 23, 12:17 AM
my new purple shoes...
Uploads
Learner, educator, Middle East politics guy.
