Where’s the Beef?

Animals, Food and Drink, United Arab Emirates

Camel Burger Newest “Healthy” Option on Dubai Menu

DUBAI (Reuters), February 2, 2010
A traditional Emirati restaurant in Dubai has added a new entree to its menu billed as a fat-free choice for carnivorous but health-conscious diners: the Camel Burger.

For 20 UAE dirhams ($5.45), the Local House restaurant offers a quarter pound camel burger, loaded with cheese and smothered in burger sauce, the Xpress weekly newspaper reported on Thursday.

Ali Ahmad Esmail, Local House assistant manager, told the paper that the burger patties were fat- and cholesterol-free. But he declined to say how the outlet tenderized the tough camel meat. Continue reading Where’s the Beef? →

Hate, Times Squared

Afghanistan, Ethics, Immigration Issues, Islam in America, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media, Obama Administration, Pakistan, Taliban, Terrorism Issue


Photos juxtaposed on May 6 by the New York Post, tabloid journalism at its most blatant

Faisal Shahzad, not your typical terrorist: unless you think being a Pakistani Muslim makes you a typical terrorist. Anyone reading yesterday’s New York Post (Wednesday, May 5) and taking the blustered and bloated tabloid rhetoric seriously could easily make such an assumption. I do not, as a rule, read tabloids, although seeing what many others do read is a useful reality check from time to time. But on the train home from Manhattan yesterday there was a crumpled up newspaper under the train seat and at least 45 minutes to unwind. The cover was, for a change, not a pun. It might be called a revelation, as it read: “REVEALED: WHY HE DID IT. EXCLUSIVE. Revenge for US drone attacks on Taliban terrorists.” Six pages (and more) were devoted to the story, although there was little that I found exclusive in the shoddy news reporting and vengeful commentary by the tabloid’s stalking heads.

Let’s start with the cover and what the tabloid pictures for us. Continue reading Hate, Times Squared →

Colorful Lithographic Orientalism #1: Dreaming

Lithographs, Orientalism, Orientalist Art

As noted in a previous post, I recently went through a late 19th century scrapbook that belonged to my great, great aunt. She had cut out pictures that interested or amused her. Several of these have Orientalist themes. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words; other times the picture says enough for itself. In this series, I leave the image to speak for itself. If you would like to comment on what you see or imagine, please do so in the comments section.

On Colonels, pantyhose and honor killings

Afghanistan, Gender and Sexuality, Islamophobia, Taliban

At the start of one of my all-time favorite movies, The Ruling Class, actor Harry Andrews as the 13th earl of Gurney returns to his well-groomed estate to relax after a long day of waxing conservative in the House of Lords. While this film should be required viewing for the current British parliamentary campaign, my interest is in the way this revered judge and former soldier relaxes: by dressing in a ballet skirt and jumping off a stool with a silk noose around his neck. Last Friday the New York Times carried a story about Col. David Russell Williams, a Canadian commander of a major air base in the Afghanistan war. He is described as “once among Canada’s most successful military officers,” the automatic pilot for visiting dignitaries, including Prime Minister Harper. Why “once”? Because the colonel on the battlefront against those honor-killing Taliban appears to be a “serial sexual predator.”

Ottawa police arrested Colonel Williams last February in connection with two murders of women, two sexual assaults and numerous break-ins in the Ottawa area “most of which involved lurid sexual details.” Continue reading On Colonels, pantyhose and honor killings →

Fiddler on the mosque

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Film and Video, Islam in Europe, Judaism

By JONNY PAUL, JERUSALEM POST, April 23, 2010

Released this week in the UK is a timely and wholesome comedy that celebrates Jewish and Muslim culture in a way not often seen in cinema. It uses comedy to take a light-hearted look at religion.

The Infidel is about a Muslim who discovers that he adopted and is actually Jewish. Written by renowned Jewish comedian and author David Baddiel, the film is a timely reminder of the commonality between both religions and goes further than most ethnic comedies.

It champions the Jewish and Muslim everyman, celebrating and laughing at aspects that are both unique and common to both religions. The film is novel in that it shows a normal Muslim family, rarely seen in cinema with the tendency to portray Muslims as radicals. Other ethnic films tend to revolve around the idea of ethnic minority adapting to the dominant culture. This film doesn’t do that, it is about minority cultures. Continue reading Fiddler on the mosque →

Food Crisis in Yemen: A Rocky Road

Development, Food and Drink, Yemen


Shahara bridge in northern Yemen

Poverty and famine are old comrades in much of the world. Add to this drastically declining water tables and economic stagnation and you have a sense of Yemen today. But a recent World Bank project makes a virtue out of the rocky road by literally providing jobs for skilled Yemeni stone cutters to build roads. Check out the video on the website by clicking here.

Female Islamic Leadership Research Network

Conferences and Talks, Development, Gender and Sexuality

Female Islamic Leadership Research Network

WHO SHOULD JOIN
Academics interested in any aspect of female religious authority or leadership in Islamic communities worldwide – historical or contemporary – should join this network. The goal of the list is to enable academics spread across a wide variety of disciplines to pass along relevant information and resources, and to discuss topics of interest.

WHY THIS NETWORK
This research network is an outgrowth of a conference held in October 2009 at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford on contemporary female Islamic authority, Women, Leadership and Mosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority. The conference focused on the growing number of women active teaching, preaching, interpreting scriptures, or leading prayer in mosques or madrasas around the world.

The large response to the call for papers for this conference made it clear that academic interest in this topic is high and increasing, and also that academics working on this topic are divided by an unusually large number of disciplinary boundaries. A virtual network with a mailing list is an ideal way to connect scholars interested in this topic.

The network is open to scholars studying any aspects of female religious leadership in Islam, and therefore includes topics outside the conference’s purview, for instance, the reinterpretation of Islamic scriptures by women who are primarily active outside of mosques and madrasas. Continue reading Female Islamic Leadership Research Network →

Suicide bomber attacks UK ambassador’s convoy in Yemen

Terrorism Issue, Yemen


Ambassador Torlot

Suicide bomber attacks UK ambassador’s convoy in Yemen

Hugh Macleod in Sana’a and Adam Gabbatt, The Guardian, April 26, 2010

The British ambassador to Yemen escaped assassination this morning when a suicide bomber attacked his security convoy as it drove through a crowded street near the embassy.

The ambassador, Tim Torlot, was unharmed, but one person – believed to be the bomber – was killed in the blast. Two local men and a woman were injured.

Torlot’s armoured car was passing through a poor neighbourhood in the eastern part of the capital, Sana’a, when the explosion occurred.

Witnesses described the suspected bomber as a young men dressed in a tracksuit and trainers who was waiting by the side of a busy road for the convoy to pass. Continue reading Suicide bomber attacks UK ambassador’s convoy in Yemen →