All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Lebanese Xriss Jor Wins At Dubai Music Week, Signs Recording Contract With Quincy Jones

Whew! What a great voice and feeling for Etta James!

A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

Xriss Jor Dubai Music Week

A jury that consisted of Timbaland and Will.i.Am chose Lebanese Xriss Jor as the winner of the talent part at the Dubai Music Festival, following her performance of Listen by Beyonce. As a result, Jor will sign a record deal contract with Sony Music and producer Quincy Jones, who has worked previously with Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra. She will get a single and a music video out of this.

Xriss was competing with Emirati singer Hamdan Al Abri, Dubai-based Lebanese band Jay Wud, Lebanese singer DD Fox and Sudanese R&B singer Nile.

I figured her name was familiar so I looked into her some more and it transpired that she was a contestant on The Voice and managed to reach the later stages of the show before being disqualified in the 1/4 finals. Those talent show contestants keep going at it until they hit the jackpot apparently. Another batch will…

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Goose (Kari) #haiku

I have followed a pair that has been together for 10 years at least.

penned in moon dust

geese

Recognized his voice

call to the one he held dear

they mated for life

*

they mated for life

flew close in each other’s sight

never collided

Photograph: Thanks to photographer Bryant Olsen for his excellent shot of the Ross’s Geese

to view more of his work (wildlife and nature) go here  (© under creative commons)

We continue to celebrate autumn at Carpe Diem the Goose (Kari) is the prompt for today

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We are on the move

hovercraftdoggy

"Laura is a 1990 born fine art & portraits photographer from munich, germany. she started taking photos at the age of 18 and quickly noticed that photography is the love of her life. starting as a selfportrait artist she learned everything she knows as an autodidact and then went on focusing on portraying actors and musicians." (via LauraZalenza)"Laura is a 1990 born fine art & portraits photographer from munich, germany. she started taking photos at the age of 18 and quickly noticed that photography is the love of her life. starting as a selfportrait artist she learned everything she knows as an autodidact and then went on focusing on portraying actors and musicians." (via LauraZalenza)"Laura is a 1990 born fine art & portraits photographer from munich, germany. she started taking photos at the age of 18 and quickly noticed that photography is the love of her life. starting as a selfportrait artist she learned everything she knows as an autodidact and then went on focusing on portraying actors and musicians." (via LauraZalenza)

Series of amazing photos, by photographer Laura Zalenza.

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“Laura is a 1990 born fine art & portraits photographer from munich, germany. she started taking photos at the age of 18 and quickly noticed that photography is the love of her life. starting as a selfportrait artist she learned everything she knows as an autodidact and then went on focusing on portraying actors and musicians.” (via LauraZalenza)

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Lebanon, Now RefugeeStan: Enough With The Humanity Talk?

A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

I was going from my hometown to Batroun a while back when I saw two hitchhikers asking for a ride. I’m not the type to worry about such things – transportation between my hometown and Batroun, if you don’t have a car, happens through that method. So I picked them up and off to Batroun we went.

They were both men. The one sitting in the back was very quiet. The one sitting in front was pretty chatty. We were talking in Lebanese. I would have never thought there was anything odd about his dialect until I asked him where he was from and he replied: Homs.

He was worried about his reply so I tried to defuse the tension by saying that I visited his city back when it actually existed and it’s a nice place. The Syrian man, however, felt it was adamant to tell me that they…

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Egypt Through Time: Photographs From 1800-2013

Egyptian Streets

Since the 2011 revolution, old photographs of Egypt and classic films showing an elegant and prosperous Egyptian society have sporadically appeared on social networks. Essentially, many are searching to learn and be inspired by the past in order to build a brighter future.  Below, is a collection of photographs of Egypt (mainly from Cairo and Alexandria) taken between the 1800s and present day.

1800s

1900-1939

1940-1999

Present Day

[Photographs sourced from various locations – many without credits. Some sources include Egypt Zaman, The Denver Post, LIFE, and The New York Public Library]

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