The Arab Street, not benchmark or ball-park, logs region's dead

Suggesting we adopt practices from the West for commemorating the dead who contributed 'back home', where the norm is street names...Remembering them in practical and communal daily spots.

"We don’t we do a simple thing to remember those who passed away, in our private or public life. Forget naming streets and avenues in the Arab World. Let’s do something simply create a metal plaque and dedicate it to that person and install it on a park bench, on a wall, on the bldg that person lived in or where that person spent their childhood at."

Inadvertently promoting Rebecca Black's Friday song..Follow the link and judge for yourself: Just cause it gets 'hits' doesn't mean it's a 'hit'.

"Apparently the secret to success and generating hits is singing in auto-tune, the worst song in the history of songs"

An opinionated piece dripping with shades of the sardonic:

' “We welcome change in our neighboring countries, yet in our terms. If you want us to introduce OUR racist/terrorist/colonial/fundamentalist version of democracy we can assist you. and while the world is busy watching revolts & Japan Tsunami we will bomb Gaza restlessly till the last child and pass more racist laws against Arabs.” More of shameless Shimon Peres lecturing about Israel democracy on the Guardian, read on by following the link within this blog post.'

On 'Khwajas' - distastefully labelled as such in Egypt, wanting, longing to belong, but being aware of the realistic likelihood of this being actualized.

But surely the spirit helps...A sense of belonging goes a long way to gaining ground.

"There is nothing, or more properly rendered, no one in this photo that suggests Egyptian-ness. Perhaps we are not blue-eyed and blond, and thus may not stand out immediately as foreigners in a crowd. But any casual glance from a local resident would eye us as ‘khawaga’ – a dialectical word stating that one is not from around here, yet lives here all the same."

Neither Fatah nor Hamas will end the Zionist Occupation of Palestine. And neither current nor upcoming Palestinian faction (violent and nonviolent alike) can end the Israeli Occupation of Palestine. These facts are based on the following causes:
1 – Israel is in full control of the occupied territories from the Jordan river and border in the east to the Mediterranean Sea, Gaza, and Egyptian border in the west; deep into the Golan Heights and the Lebanese border in the north.

"I have been asked to do a couple of events lately and they want to me label myself. Choose a title. Choose a label.

Choose Choose Choose! "

"Do I label myself based on my heritage? Arab American? No, that won’t work. Palestinian on my fathers side, American on my mothers side? That won’t work either. Palestinian from Tina, Slavic and Irish? Or I could say I’m half Palestinian, a quarter Irish and a quarter Slavic."

More fiction from the serialized pieces 'Layla' by Ola Eliwat:

"It wasn’t just a play, it was a Cinderella story. My friend didn’t have to say much to convince me to go, given my love for theater, and add to it a classical childhood story, I was sold on the spot. In fact, I imagined it was one of those deep theater performances with supplemented messages, as Cinderella could symbolize a vast array of notions and ideas."