I don’t know these people, and i did not attend that graduation celebration. However this is a video of some people celebrating graduating from Birzeit University (BZU) that i found randomly on YouTube.

I don’t know …. but there is something nice about their singing and celebration. It sounds so sincerely happy.

For some reason, The School of Athens just popped into my mind and i just can not let it go. It is truly a masterpiece. It is so full of deep references. ….. you have the great Greek philosophers laying left and right, and the center point is a master piece of itself.

You have Plato on the left and, his student, Aristotle on the right. Walking side-by-side giving a complete sense of fellowship. Each of them is holding a book that he has “published”. With their right hands, one gesture is enough to sum up their personalities and beliefs. Plato is pointing up depicting his belief in high pureness, not material/physical things (a mathematician indeed !!). Aristotle, is gesturing the ground depicting his belief in empirical physical data (an engineer ).

Thank you Raphael for this true masterpiece.

P.S. I really was tempted to put the full size of at least one of those two files in this post. I stopped myself in the last minute . But i did have the full-sized Plato-Aristotle picture up on my homepage for a while .

Arabic rap is increasing in popularity in the region. According to this wikipedia article, either the group DAM (from the Lod اللد) or MWR (from Acre عكا) where the first in this business. Personally, i am not a big fan of Arabic hiphop yet. However i am getting to like the group Ramllah Underground. Some of their songs have some nice expressive meanings, which is good.

Anyway here is a video clip of Ramallah Underground’s “Nateejeh bala shugol” (result with no work). The video was apparently shot in Jordan (possibly Amman) because you could see the “كلنا الأردن” slogan on top of the door he exits from in the beginning.

Caution: there are a couple (not alot) of blant Arabic swears in the middle. Not a big fan of swearing myself.

I don’t know the exact classification of this type of art … i guess it is abstract art. … regardless … here are some very beautiful pieces by Yazan Khalifeh. I found these at RamallahUnderground.com.

Chain Free

Flesh in Harmony

The Nest

كل عام وأنتم بخير بمناسبة عيد الفطر . أعاده الله علينا وعليكم بكل عافية وخير وسلامة.

Bab El-7ara (part 2) is the first movie series i’ve watched since the last 5 Ramadans. Although i did not see the first part, i started watching this series since the rest of my family and friends did. As many others, i was shocked by how the “female role” was portrayed in this series, and by how trivial are the issues that the males fight ever so dramatically about.

One night while i was making one of my usual “this is absurd” comments, my little sister looks at me and says, “maybe they are not showing us this as a good thing”, and it finally dawned on me!! Traditionally, movie series set up in the semi-distant past idolized the lost values and traditions of those eras. Although many of these values (such as modesty, bravery, generosity, courage, caring for one another and for one’s neighbors) are good and should be idolized. We sometimes overlook the fact that the semi-distant past did carry a load of problematic traditions such as female illiteracy and gender bias.

Maybe she’s right! Maybe the producers of Bab El-Hara want us to take a critical look at problems such as gender bias and trivial in-fighting. After all, this series did successfully create a huge buzz, and it did in fact stir up many discussions. …. anyway, even if that was not purposefully meant, i think this is how i will look at it from now on.

In June of 2006, Carolyn McIntyre set out on a journey following the steps of the 14th century explorer Ibn Battuta. Carolyn tries to adhere to Ibn Battuta’s original route as much as possible and she blogs all that she sees along the way.

You can read more about her journey on her blog at:
http://www.girlsoloinarabia.com/
http://girlsoloinarabia.typepad.com/

Interesting …

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,2783174,00.html?maca=ara-rss-ar-all-1125-rdf