Racism is what racism is – Wonder if Modi will care? Statistics for the year ended September 30, 2017 show an aggregate decline of 16% compared to the corresponding previous year, with 4.21 lakh student visas handed out against 5.02 lakh in the year-ago period, according to data released by the US Department of State.
Category Archives: Viva!
Donald Trump eyes massive tariffs on China tech sector
Trying to look tough will not keep you out of jail for treason The Trump administration is reportedly preparing to impose tariffs targeting Chinese tech and telecommunications imports. Should Washington follow through on the move, it could spark harsh retaliation from Beijing.
On Mahmoud Darwish’s Birthday, 13 Poems
The Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish (d. 2008) was born in al-Birwa on this day in 1941. To commemorate his entrance into our world on March 13, ArabLit has 13 poems (and poemish texts):
1) “The Moon Did Not Fall Into the Well,” from Journal of an Ordinary Grief, tr. Ibrahim Muhawi
Muhawi’s translations have a wonderful sense of the rhythm of the original, and this particular text is narrative, open-hearted, and with deeply etched characters. It opens:
—What are you doing, father?
—I’m searching for my heart, which fell away that night.
—Do you think you’ll find it here?
—Where else am I going to nd it? I bend to the ground and pick it up piece by piece just as the women of the fellahin pick up olives in October, one olive at a time.
—But you’re picking up pebbles!
—Doing that is a good exercise for memory and perception. Who knows? Maybe these pebbles are petrified pieces of my heart.
2) “Love, like meaning,” from In the Presence of Absence, tr. Sinan Antoon.
Perhaps the greatest of Darwish’s works, this version brought Antoon the 2012 National Translation Award:
Love, like meaning, is out on the open road, but like poetry, it is difficult. It requires talent, endurance, and skillful formulation, because of its many stations. It is not enough to love, for that is one of nature’s magical acts, like rainfall and thunder. It takes you out of yourself into the other’s orbit and then you have to fend for yourself. It is not enough to love, you have to know how to love. Do you know how?
3) “The Dice Player,” from If I Were Another, tr. Fady Joudah
The charming “The Dice Player” with a visual adaptation:
4) “The Horse Fell off the Poem,” from The Butterfly’s Burden, tr. Fady Joudah
5) “The Second Olive Tree,” tr. Marilyn Hacker
And with horses, olive trees:
The olive tree does not weep and does not laugh. The olive tree
Is the hillside’s modest lady. Shadow
Covers her one leg, and she will not take her leaves off in front of the storm.
Standing, she is seated, and seated, standing.
6) “Nothing But Iraq,” tr. Shareah Taleghani
A cry to Badr Shakir al-Sayyab:
I remember as-Sayyab screaming into the Gulf in vain:
Iraq, Iraq. Nothing but Iraq.
And nothing but an echo replies
I remember as-Sayyab, in that Sumerian space
A woman triumphed over the sterility of mist
She bequeathed to us earth and exile . . .
For poetry is born in Iraq,
So be Iraqi to become a poet, my friend.
7) “And where is my will?” from Memory for Forgetfulness, tr. Ibrahim Muhawi
And where is my will?
It stopped over there, on the other side of the collective voice. But now, I want nothing more than the aroma of coffee. Now I feel shame. I feel shamed by my fear, and by those defending the scent of the distant homeland–that fragrance they’ve never smelled because they weren’t born on her soil. She bore them, but they were born away from her. Yet they studied her constantly, without fatigue or boredom; and from overpowering memory and constant pursuit, they learned what it means to belong to her.
“You’re aliens here,” they say to them there.
“You’re aliens here,” they say to them here.
8) “Diary,” tr. Tania Tamari Nasir and John Berger.
If you were told: you’re going to die here this evening What would you do in the remaining time? Look at my watch Drink a glass of juice Munch an apple Watch an ant who has found what to eat Then look at my watch There’s still time to shave have a bath I say to myself: One needs one’s finery when about to write So I’ll wear the blue shirt I sit til noon alive at my desk I do not see the effect of color on words Whiteness whiteness whiteness I prepare my last lunch I pour out wine into two glasses For me and for the one who will come Unannounced Then I take a siesta in between two dreams
9) “The Tragedy of Narcissus,” from If I Were Another, tr. Fady Joudah:
10) “A Noun Sentence,” The Butterfly’s Burden, tr. Fady Joudah
A noun sentence, no verb
to it or in it: to the sea the scent of the bed
after making love … a salty perfume
or a sour one. A noun sentence: my wounded joy
like the sunset at your strange windows.
11) “If I Were a Hunter,” tr. Shakir Mustafa
If a hunter I were
I’d give the gazelle
a chance, and another,
and a third, and a tenth,
to doze a little. My share
of the booty would be
peace of mind under
her dozing head.
12) “Mural,” translated by John Berger and, Rema Hammami
My nurse says: you are better now
and injects me with a tranquillizer:
Be calm
and worthy of what you’re about to dream
even a little…
13) “ID Card,” tr. Salman Masalha and Vivian Eden
This would not likely be a poem Darwish would choose among only 13 of his works. But it is one that, although written in his early days, in 1964, continues to have great political resonance:
Write it down! Im an Arab
My card number is 50000
My children number eight
And after this summer, a ninth on his way.
Does this make you rage?
I am an Arab.
– Geek Squad’s relationship with FBI is cozier than we thought
After the prosecution of a California doctor revealed the FBI’s ties to a Best Buy Geek Squad computer repair facility in Kentucky, new documents released to EFF show that the relationship goes back years. The records also confirm that the FBI has paid Geek Squad employees as informants.
Putin’s Approach to the West Now ‘a Game without Rules,’ Feltshtinsky Says
Japan’s Finance Ministry admits to doctoring documents linked to Abe’s wife
The names of Abe, his wife and the finance minister were removed from a document linked to an alleged land-sale scandal. The cover-up could dent Abe’s support.
Monday Open Thread | ICE Caught Ripping Family Apart in National City, CA
This hurts my soul. The cruel barbarism of white supremacy. Heartless savages dragging a woman from her daughters. I hate them intensely. Ice Agents are ripping families apart, while people are watching and they don’t give a fuck. It’s no different than when slave masters sold off families, ripping children from their mother’s arms to sell for profit. We are living the most hellish nightmare under Trump. Please God, let it end soon.
ICE dragged this mother into a van while her three children watched in horror pic.twitter.com/zVMkWOVE44
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) March 9, 2018
This Week in Egypt: Week 10-2018 ( March 5-11)
Top Headlines
- Saudi Arabia and Egypt agree to a $10 billion deal to build a new mega city
- Saudi Crown Prince meets Coptic Pope Tawadros II at Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo
- Saudi crown prince winds up trip to Egypt with a mosque visit
- Eni sells stake in Egypt’s Zohr gasfield to the UAE-based investment fund Mubadala
- Egypt army says 16 extremely dangerous jihadists are killed in Sinai operation
- Egypt’s chief spy and Qatar’s top diplomat in Khartoum for separate talks with Sudanese officials
- Egyptian prosecutors seek death sentence for photographer Shawakan

MBS becomes first Saudi Crown Prince to visit Cathedral & meet Coptic Pope in Egypt. Photo via al-Arabiya
Main Headlines
Monday
- Saudi Arabia and Egypt agree to a $10 billion deal to build a new mega city
- Sisi to Saudi Crown Prince: Gulf security is an integral of Egypt’s security
- Egypt’s Sisi and Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman to…
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hijabby: Palestine. West bank wall
Martha and The Vandellas – Nowhere To Run (Ready Steady Go – 1965)
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