Finally finished a video project!
The idea was to pretend that I’m taking a picture of someone, have them pose, then pretend that I accidentally had the camera set on “video” mode in an attempt to capture a genuine smile on video, no matter how short it would last.
Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.I met fancycherries yesterday at the Envision Arabia Summit; I recognized him and introduced myself.
(Source: ah-med)
54 notesI was discussing politics with my khalo (uncle) via skype the other day, and political discussion with him is always a thrill ride. I always think I have a great stamina to discuss politics for very long periods of time but he’ll go on forever, and I’m not exaggerating. And he gets very angry. And his information is more often than not very faulty - I guess you could call him a conspiracy theorist?
Anyways, amongst the many unexpected things he said, one struck me in particular, because it’s so impossible yet I can’t rule it out entirely. He thinks that Al-Qaeda is funded and controlled by the Mossad (Israel’s CIA Equivalent).
WORST CONSPIRACY THEORY EVER OR GREATEST REALISTIC INSIGHT EVER?!?!?!?!?!?
His reasoning, which I can’t really argue against, is that firstly) Al-Qaeda does not reflect Islamic teachings (DUH!) nor the will of Muslims around the world (DUH!) and secondly) If they’re serious about opposing those who oppress Muslims why don’t they seriously focus their attention on Israel?
Now, there are many unstated assumptions in his reasoning which I won’t go into because it would be off topic. I don’t think he’s correct but it’s a very interesting statement.
I was like:
Chiekha Rimiti, classic Algerian.
Not to mention that the music she’s singing over would make a hot hip-hop track. I’m half-kidding. More like 25% kidding. It would be killin.
6 notesHI!
It’s been a long while since I’ve posted anything on this blog. I recently travelled out of state and afterwards had to relocate back to University to be busied yet again with classes, performances, and newspaper reporting. I hope to renew my attempt to post regularly on this blog, and begin a new attempt to increase the quality of every single post as well.
FOR THE TIME BEING HOWEVER, please enjoy this video of two of the greatest JAZZ LEGENDS, Chris Potter and Herbie Hancock, jamming on one of the FUNKIEST grooves you will ever hear.
3 notesI saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two for the second time today. As a result I am feeling very nostalgic about my eleven year long Harry Potter experience. To write nostalgic quips about various moments, memories, settings, feelings, characters, music, etc from the series would be redundant considering how many times it has been done before. But I will say this, as someone who also reads quote “high brow literature,” I find Harry Potter to be refreshing, for a few reasons. In an era of apathetic cynicism with an unceasing supply of a sarcastic pessimistically based idea of realism that deludes itself by craving real emotion and sincerity yet denying itself of any such sincerity out of subconscious fear and weakness, I find what I consider to be the overall theme of Harry Potter, that love is the greatest power in existence, to be encouraging. As a fan of David Foster Wallace, I enjoy reading his cynical approach to cynicism, and I heartily support what I gleaned, (and I could be wrong), to be a notion from one of his essays, E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction, that the word, (and application of), “cheesy,” only came into existence after the development of television. Think, whenever someone considers an event or situation to be “cheesy,” do they not say it reminds of them of something that occurred on television or in a movie? Now, the idea I previously mentioned has a far more complex explanation, but will do for my purposes. I am just saying that it is not completely foolish nor childish to cherish the notions of love, magic, and innocence, because, I ask, were these ideas considered “cheesy,” before the invention of television? For just one example, were the ideas of freedom, equality, and the gutsy optimistic hopeful attitude that pervaded the American revolution “cheesy?” I hate to think what would have happened if the public at that time considered revolution an unrealistic idea based on “cheesy, t.v. like,” inspirations. I feel that sincerity is reality, in fact, in most cases, the definitions of each word are strongly related. I’m afraid that the more people avoid being sincere due to the fear of looking “cheesy,” the less the history books will have to say about mankind. Human endeavor has always, and will always be, driven by the very ideals so many people today consider “cheesy.” Personally, I think people who are afraid of feeling real sincere emotion are weak. This is why I love Harry Potter, it is a source of hope for me, that the notions of love, magic, and innocence, to name a few, still exist, and therefore, are still available for those brave souls who are willing to embrace sincerity and use it to create reality, and hopefully, and forgive my cheesy cliche closing, create a reality that is as loving, magical, and innocent as the world of Harry Potter.
(As a side note, I am not a fan of false sincerity either. I do not support false, impulsive, over-exaggerrated emotions, such as the ones I see many people let loose day to day, drastically shifting from sad to happy, purposefully choosing moments that mean something to them and them alone to exclaim their appreciation of a meaningful quote or picture or song etc and then losing sight of their epiphanies as soon as they are faced with a new, mostly mundane, challenge. I also acknowledge judging when people are sincere or not is a shifty process, but you get the idea.)
(I also want to explain my statement that people who are afraid to feel sincerity are weak. They are weak because they have no sense of self, and are therefore afraid of what they might find throughout their experiences in life, choosing to throw a sarcastic cynical veneer between them and the world, in order to escape the reality which they are so afraid will defeat them, when in truth, it only seeks their embrace. I feel confident in saying that you will not find many examples of purely cynical apathetic people who made any contributions to humanity in any way.)
I think I’ve begun to ramble on in an illogical and more complex than necessary way, so I will stop. Now.
11 notes
![androphilia:
The massacre that Paris denied | The Guardian
No one was ever brought to justice for the murder half a century ago of up to 200 French-Algerians
By Nabila Ramdani
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Republican values of liberté, egalité, fraternité will be all but forgotten when thousands of Parisians recall the most murderous episode in the French capital’s postwar history tomorrow. Commemorations are planned for the 50th anniversary of the French-Algerian massacre, when up to 200 peaceful protesters were slaughtered in cold blood around iconic national monuments, including the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral.
The most memorable – and vicious – atrocities saw policemen herding panicking crowds on to Paris’s bridges, where many were tossed into the Seine. Normally a romantic symbol of the most popular tourist city in the world, the river became a watery morgue for scores of victims, whose lifeless bodies were washing up for weeks afterwards.
Others died in police stations, or in nearby woods, where their mutilated bodies testified to truncheon and rifle-butt injuries. The officers had been incensed by an illegal protest by 30,000 men, women and children organised by the National Liberation Front (FLN) – the main Algerian nationalist group in their country’s war of independence with France.
Fifty years will seem like a long time to many of the young French Algerians who mark the anniversary today, but in many ways it seems very recent. Maurice Papon, the Paris police chief who instigated the killings, only died four years ago, aged 96; and some of his unrepentant and unpunished henchmen still remain at large.
Like Papon, many of the killers had been Nazi collaborators who learned their crowd control methods from the Gestapo. They were experts at disinformation too: the official death toll after Papon’s self-proclaimed “Battle of Paris” was initially three, before being revised to a vague “several dozen” almost 40 years later.
No judicial inquiry ever took place, with many French still blaming Algerian in-fighting and terrorist attacks for the deaths. Papon was finally brought to justice for crimes against humanity – but only for those he committed during the second world war. President Charles de Gaulle, and then successive governments, ensured he was never indicted for what he did to the French Algerians of Paris.
Most now live in the blighted housing estates which dot the outskirts of the capital. These banlieues grew out of the immigrant worker shanty towns which became recruiting grounds for the FLN in the 50s and 60s. Police felt they could control “insurgents” better on the estates, and they are still overflowing with young people from north Africa.
As during the nationalist war, French Algerians are still encouraged to stay out of tourist Paris. Curfews are regularly imposed on the estates, with armoured vehicles filled with paramilitaries moving in during disturbances. When particularly heavy rioting broke out in 2005, the then interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, imposed a state of emergency. Like the curfews, it was based on Algerian war legislation from 1955.
Up to 40% of young French Algerians from the estates are currently unemployed. Without money or prospects, some have turned to crime, helping to swell a prison population estimated to be up to 70% Muslim. Many resemble the angst-ridden, alienated young Algerians who took to the streets in 1961.
Statistics about the current generation are unofficial because secular France does not record the ethnicity and religion of its citizens, but there is no doubt that French Algerians still regularly experience what it is like to be a second-class citizen. Racism against France’s largest minority group is endemic – from the public and private institutions who fail to employ them, through to the media organisations which fail to report their issues.
Few would argue that the tribal murders committed by Paris police half a century ago are likely to be repeated today. But nor would anyone pretend that the discriminatory policies which gave rise to such horrors have disappeared from modern France.
[Image: Protesters are arrested by police on the day of the massacre. (Fernand Parizot/AFP)]
[France remembers Algerian massacre 50 years on | The Guardian - October 17, 2011][Algeria issues postage stamp to mark 1961 killings in Paris | Al-Arabiya - October 17, 2011][Long history of a forgotten massacre | Presseurop - October 17, 2011][Algeria-France: Shot and drowned Oct. 17, 1961 | The Africa Report - October 17, 2011]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lt7xu0eqBO1qb5wbbo1_500.jpg)
