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Blogosphere 12 Aug - 18 Aug
Gulf News deputy web editor Florence Pia G. Yu plunges headlong into the blogosphere to find out what bloggers from the Middle East and beyond have on their minds.
- By Florence Pia G. Yu, Deputy Web Editor
- Published: 23:22 August 11, 2008
- Playboy model Pamela Anderson wants to build a hotel in the UAE.
- Image Credit: Abdul Rahman/Gulf News
Gulf News deputy web editor Florence Pia G. Yu plunges headlong into the blogosphere to find out what bloggers from the Middle East and beyond have on their minds.
Abu Dhabi Baywatch
What's more absurd?
1. Playboy model Pamela Anderson wants to build a hotel in a conservative Islamic emirate.
2. She plans to build a zero-fossil-fuel eco-friendly hotel in one of the biggest carbon-chugging nations in the world.
Perhaps she can bring her Baywatch buddies round to fan people with date palm fronds as they swelter in her un-airconditioned, electricity-free, “kind-to-the-earth'' resort.
http://secretdubai.blogspot.com
Metro marvel?
I have always wondered how people would get from one side of Shaikh Zayed Road to the other when taking the Metro... and now I know. One more question remains: how will people get to wherever it is they need to get to once they have stopped at a station? So say, for example, I take the Metro and I stop at the Greens station... I then need to get to my place, which is around six streets away... Now I know six streets doesn't sound like much, but keep in mind that: a) Streets are pretty big here, and b) Temperatures are unbearable in the summer. Will there be shuttle buses? How will this work?
http://dxbsunshine.blogspot.com
In the bin
A few days ago, while I was roaming the roads late at night, I noticed some men using long sticks to forage through garbage bins by the roadside. They then picked up some bottles of water in different sizes from those garbage bins, put the bottles in their bags and went away.
I thought: What do they do after picking up those empty bottles? Do they sell the bottles to someone who will re-fill them with water and sell them in the market? If so, is it safe to throw empty water bottles into the garbage bins?
Next time I throw any bottle into garbage bin, I will make myself sure that it is crushed beyond re-use.
Remembering Mahmoud Darwish
As soon as I got to Ramallah I received a text message that there would be a candlelight vigil for [late poet Mahmoud] Darwish. I called a friend to see if he wanted to come, but he was so angry that Darwish died in the US and not here in Palestine that he was hesitant to join me. In the end he came to the vigil as did hundreds of people. The candlelight vigil began in Ramallah at the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center. There were people of all ages there and I suspect that if I had asked any of the children there — or anyone for that matter — if they knew any of Darwish's poems, they would have recited one from memory. They handed out candles to the people and we sat around in silence and a few people read poems in Arabic and English.
A man recited one of Darwish's poems from memory and with so much passion that it moved people to tears. Here is an excerpt from that poem:
This is your name —
a woman said,
and vanished through the winding corridor
There I see heaven within reach.
The wing of a white dove carries me
towards another childhood.
And I never dreamt that I was dreaming. Everything is real.
http://bodyontheline.wordpress.com
Dancing Filipino inmates
First they danced to Thriller, then they danced to MC Hammer and now the prisoners are back doing the Macarena. Isn't dancing to the Macarena counted as a form of torture?
Surviving a trip to Dubai
I survived another 14 hours without a cigarette and I don't feel stressed. Dubai has smoking rooms, yay!!!
The flight did take forever, but at least the meals were great, and the movie selection was excellent. I watched Kung Fu Panda, Narnia: Prince Caspian, 27 Dresses and played the trivia tournament, and a bit of black jack. I suck at the games, but it was amusing for the first 20 minutes.
Also, isn't it weird that I can sleep next to a complete stranger in a plane without anyone batting an eyelid? I slept next to this lady and at one stage, I woke up and we were facing each other, like we always had. It was weird! I told the lady that she must be a deep sleeper, and she exclaimed, “Oh, was I snoring?!!"
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/supalen
Open letter
Dear Bahraini MPs. I first laughed and then turned crimson red when I read in the news that one of you proposed to the Telecommunications Regulatory Board that Facebook should be banned.
I laughed because nothing can be banned by anyone any more. Wake up and smell the new era of freedom — an era you cannot control; an era out of your grasp and understanding; and an era too complex for you to absorb.
Stop interfering with technology and the internet; new media and old media; the silver and the big screen.
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