Riveting Reads Round Up: 29 July 2012

Brush your teeth and then go drink some OJ, and you're in for a rude surprise -- the juice tastes downright awful. What causes that? Most toothpastes contain a compound called sodium laureth sulfate, which causes the foaming action when you brush. But it also blocks your tongue from being able to detect sweetness. So when you drink the juice, you're unable to taste the sweet aspects; instead, you only sense the bitter/sour parts. – interesting fact, via Now I Know, a cool way to learn something new every day…

If there is one thing that you want to read that will really challenge you… make it this article on the thoughts of an Israeli Defence Force checkpoint soldier.

To be honest, the article made me sick… not only at the words I was reading, but at the situation of the Palestinians, the inhumanity of war and the poison of power.  Read it critically…but I guess it is also important for me (and Muslims in general, who might be highly offended that I posted this link) that we are also merciful in our thoughts and look to at least try to understand the other sides…

There is then no normative notion of disobedience at the checkpoint, no proper way for Palestinians to act. The only way for Palestinians to anticipate the soldier’s next order is to try, at every moment, to anticipate the soldier’s next thought. Is he irritated? Is he complaisant? Is he looking for action? Is he feeling lonely and hoping for a friendly conversation? Does he want to be amused? Is he in a hurry? Is he filled with grief and anger? The soldier’s mental state is the Palestinian’s most urgent concern: it is a matter of life and death. As one soldier testifies, “I can assure you there’s tremendous frustration building up, it’s really scary. I would take it all out on someone.”…

The circumstances instill in soldiers and Palestinians an intense interest in each other’s minds. This same interest subverts their capacity to recognize each other. There can be neither truth telling nor lying at the checkpoint. No obligations, no gestures, no smiles, and no insults. There can be neither respect nor disrespect, neither shame nor honor. Palestinians will say and do whatever they think is most likely to get them through the checkpoint. Soldiers will say and do whatever keeps the Palestinians scared enough to do nothing but obey:

Actually, you should also read this article from Racialicious: A Muslim Community, Tarred Again.  I think a great article on the difficulties of American Muslims trying to make it.  Doesn’t mean they can’t, but it is difficult…

In an interview for a research position on South Asian affairs at a US bureau, I was asked to state my views on Israel. And I have, sadly, taken it as a given that in interviews I will be asked what kind of Arab I am. When I say that I am the “Indian kind of Arab,” few understand—or appreciate—the joke.

South Sudan: Sometimes money really should come with strings attached…

Banksy enters the Olypmic Games…"

Could be a little awkward…More Olympians than you might think lose their medals!

Ever wondered what the optimum way to travel on foot was while it was raining? Wonder no more!

A physicist has put forth new ideas in the long-running question of how best to keep dry when moving in the rain.  If you run, you are out in the rain for less time, yet you run into more drops - so what is the optimal speed?

Let’s talk Batman – What it would take to become Batman physically, and how much it would cost to be him? About $2.8 million…not too shabby.

 

Still on Batman, but an infinitely more sombre note…Spree Killer Contradictions. A moving, and I think very apt, piece.

I refuse to write his name because he’s not the point, the is-he-or-isn’t-he faking psychosis mass murderer who destroyed dozens of families last weekend in his quest for selfishness. As much as we want to aim our fingers at him in judgment, this act of violence isn’t about him, just as it wouldn’t be about the lone terrorist who stuffed a bomb into his underwear, or the two disgruntled men who took out the Federal building in Oklahoma City all those Aprils ago. I don’t absolve any of these men of their acts, certainly not, but I can’t abide providing them the public attention they crave and that they receive from so many media outlets.

Great response to those who critisise the Sudan Revolts for having “no alternative”

 

Something random to finish us off…

 

Frenchman Franck confirmed for GC600

Kelly Racing has today confirmed the French former Formula One driver Franck Montagny as the third driver in their international line up for the Gold Coast 600.

Read the rest of the piece here.

Ex-Formula 1 and IndyCar Driver confirm seats at the GC600

Another two drivers have been confirmed for the Gold Coast 600 in October, Finnish ex-Formula 1 driver Mika Salo for Ford Performance Racing and IndyCar’s star Graham Rahal joins Kelly Racing.

This was originally published on Richard’s F1…read more here.

Women in the East, Women in the West: Finding the middle ground.

Have you ever had your fundamental beliefs about your role in society challenged?

I never thought it would be so…confusing.

Having recently returned from a four month stint in Sudan, I have been trying to reconcile what I saw and experienced there with my experience growing up in Australia as an Aussie chick.  I think I am still figuring it all out…

I never really considered myself a true victim of the “identity crisis” issues that were said to plague first and second generation migrants that make Australia their home.  I considered myself ‘Straylian through and through, from the way I talked and thought, to my mates and sports of choice (except for cricket…soccer girl all the way).  I loved the fact that I could walk into a pump shop at a mine site in central Queensland as a hijabi-wearing-Sudanese-born gal and instantly relate to the old mates working maintenance because, well, I grew up here. This was my country, these were my people.

I felt comfortable with the choices I had made: my degree and career (mechanical engineer, pretty butch), my sport (boxing: yup, as feminine as they come) and the belief that my gender played no part in the role I was to play in society.  My mantra was pretty much “well if the boys can do it, I can do it too”.  My father was naturally horrified, but hid it well and mostly accepted that was who I had become.

Boy, was I in for a treat when I got to Sudan.

My first month was…interesting.  Not because of the heat, or the conditions or the lack of system…but because of the cultural expectations that were placed on me that I just wasn’t accustomed to.  I understood and accepted the bare bones of it all (after all, my parents brought me up as a Sudanese woman), but what frustrated me was the clear discrepancy between the roles of men and women and the unwritten rules that I was expected to adhere to.

Sport was a big one – my grandmother couldn’t understand why I wanted to train on the local track, competed with my uncle in pushups or was so interested in exercise.   It wasn’t even the obviously masculine things that were different: Apparently the way I walked, sat, talked, laughed…the issues I wanted to debate (politics isn’t for women!) and the interests that I had were all unfeminine and undesirable in a respectable Sudanese woman. 

I used to joke to my aunt: “Someone should write a rule book on “How to live life as a Sudanese woman” so I don’t keep putting my foot in it and doing the wrong thing”

She would just laugh.  “This is how it is here…”

At first, I found it funny.   I loved being the odd one out, flying in the face of what was acceptable, just being me.  Then it began to frustrate me.  Why was I being judged on things that had nothing to do with my true character? Why weren’t my cousins fighting for their rights as women!

It isn’t as if my cousins were “oppressed”.  Hardly.  My cousins are all studying or working and my aunts all have higher degrees.  Their English is great and they are all well educated and well read.  In fact, one aunt is running one of the biggest businesses in Sudan!  So the opportunity for women to do things is there. Yet… I still couldn’t understand how the women were living with such cultural restrictions.

My cousin shed some light on her perspective one night and said something that I had never considered before.

“It is so cool that you are travelling and doing all this stuff and seeing the world Yassmina, but that is your world.  You have to accept what we have accepted that this is our world and we have to operate in it.  It’s not as bad as you think! We know what we have to do and the role we have to play to be a good woman, a good wife, a good Sudanese and a good Muslim, so we do that.  We don’t want to make our lives harder by looking for things that we don’t really need…”

My aunt echoed a similar sentiment.  “You might look at me and say woah, she has a degree but she is sitting at home taking care of the house, how oppressed is she!  But I love doing this! I love taking care of the house, cooking and being there for my family, and many others do as well.  I work [she has a teaching job], but I work hours that will suit the family because at the end of the day, the family is most important.  You might disagree Yassmina, but the woman is better suited to bringing up a family; you can’t have a home without a mother…and I am happy to fill that role”.

Hold up! I thought.  Yes, there were some societal inequalities that women had issues with and were wanting to have resolved…but by and large they were happy with the role they were playing in life? They **wanted** to be caregivers and homemakers? Wait…does this mean our entire definition of success differs? Huh? Didn’t they want to be liberated?

Yikes.  Now I was confused and I began to wonder…

Maybe there is some validity in the way my family see the role of a woman. Maybe it is too crazy for me to expect a man to have an equal share in the housework. Maybe, as a woman, I have to think about my role as a procreator and a homemaker as just as, if not more important, than my career…

If you know me at all, you would know those thoughts are truly at odds with how I tend to see the world.

There is another aspect to it too, one that I haven’t talked about here, and that is how the women see it as their Islamic duty to be the caregivers and the homemakers.  This was harder for me to deal with, because I don’t have the scholarly Islamic knowledge to confidently refute what they were saying.

So I reached a point where I was at a loss.

Do I forget about everything I saw and learnt in Sudan and continue living life the way I had been in Australia, with gender not being a factor in my decisions because “that’s how I grew up”? 

Or, do I follow the path described by my cultural background, where all my decisions are largely based on gender and gender roles… because that is “where I am from?”

I had – and sometimes still have – difficulty reconciling what I grew up with and what my background encourages. The thing is, I think the expected role of a Sudanese woman in society is at odds with the expected role as an Australian woman in society.

How does one deal with that?

***

I guess for me, I think I am beginning to realise that the idea that “women can have it all” is fair enough, but perhaps for me should be amended to “women can have whatever they want”.  If they want the house and kids that’s great, and if they want the career that is within their rights as well.  Having it all at the same time though… that might be a little more difficult.

I don’t have a concrete answer to my mental dilemma just yet. All I do know is that I feel there needs to be a middle ground, and that is the one that I choose to take, inshallah. A path that takes into account that I am a woman, but that doesn’t limit my choices, it informs them.

If there is one thing I took away from the trip, it is this: It is important, as a woman, to recognise that if (and inshallah when) you choose to have a family, the role as a mother is invaluable and cannot be substituted… and that gender does play a factor in the family dynamic, whether we like it or not.

***

How it will all play out and how much will I take from that lesson? I guess only time will tell…

What about you? How do you see the role of women in society? Have you ever had your views so challenged?

***

Spots of Substance: 22nd July 2012

  How was your week? I learnt a whole bunch of new things about motorsport journalism, fell flat on my rear at the first time ice skating for nearly a decade…and began Ramadaan.  I also spent a lot of time online and here are some particularly interesting things I came across!

(after you check out the links, of course :P)

Striking truths. A new picture with an inspirational saying (like the above) every day…

So what is Ramadaan exactly? Glad you asked: Ramadaan guide for non-Muslims

Why smart people are dumb via The New Yorker

Perhaps our most dangerous bias is that we naturally assume that everyone else is more susceptible to thinking errors, a tendency known as the “bias blind spot.” This “meta-bias” is rooted in our ability to spot systematic mistakes in the decisions of others—we excel at noticing the flaws of friends—and inability to spot those same mistakes in ourselves.

How much money do you need to be happy? What is your number? An interesting post on money, happiness, indulgence and sharing…

But what about individuals who are notorious for their struggles with sharing? Surely the emotional benefits of giving couldn’t possibly apply to very young children, who cling to their possessions as though their lives depended on it. To find out, we teamed up with the developmental psychologist Kiley Hamlin and gave toddlers the baby-equivalent of gold: goldfish crackers. Judging from their beaming faces, they were pretty happy about this windfall. But something made them even happier. They were happiest of allwhen giving some of their treats away to their new friend, a puppet named Monkey. Monkey puppets aside, the lesson is clear: maximizing our happiness is not about maximizing our goldfish. To be clear, having more goldfish (or more gold) doesn’t decrease our happiness — those first few crackers may provide a genuine burst of delight. But rather than focusing on how much we’ve got in our bowl, we should think more carefully about what we do with what we’ve got — which might mean indulging less, and may even mean giving others the opportunity to indulge instead.

Omar Offendum – A Syrian American rapper, using his gift to try bring voice to the uprisings in Syria, muses at The Rolling Stone.

Owen Jones: On Islamophobia in Europe

In France – where recently 42 per cent polled for Le Monde believed that the presence of Muslims was a "threat" to their national identity – a record number voted for the anti-Muslim National Front in April's presidential elections. Denmark's third largest party is the People's Party, which rails against "Islamisation" and demands the end of all non-Western immigration. The anti-Muslim Vlaams Belang flourishes in Flemish Belgium. But those who take a stand against Islamophobia are often demanded to qualify it with a condemnation of extremism. When is this ever asked of other stands against prejudice?

How do you deal with feelings of intellectual inadequacy? “I am not as smart as I thought I was…”

Epilogue: The Future of Print, a beautiful video

 4 Lessons in Creativity from John Cleese! Brilliant, truly brilliant.  It is similar to what he says in the speech below in 1991…

Knowledge Nibbles

  As you all know, the Internet is full of amazing things… here are some interesting titbits to keep your minds sharp!

Ramadaan is here…So Ramadaan Kareem!

Everyone will see it and appreciate it in their own ways. I love how being part of the Muslim Ummah means we participate in the same events, enriched with different traditions and cultural teachings.  What are your traditions during Ramadaan??

• Football is the Best Sport: I definitely, whole heartedly agree! Here, the argument is made for why it is the most “morally interesting” sport…

Being the fairest and unfairest of all games helps to make football the most morally interesting…

• Higgs Boson… a new particle. It is pretty ground breaking stuff, via YMFY
• Ranking Disney princesses from the least to the most feminist…Interesting that my fav ones are number 1 –3!

• MotoGP news: Honda delivers two different bikes in order to try solve this intriguing tire chatter issue. I love a meaty engineering design problem. Check out the GP mag in general for recent motorsport news…

• This is definitely something I want to write about or mull on more – a study shows that over the past decade or so, womens’ expectations have risen in terms of career and family… They increasingly value both.
• An interesting piece on the limitations of dichotomies.  I feel as I am getting older and experiencing more, I am less and less sure that people can be black and white on issues, or that people can have a stance without even deigning to take into account the various other aspects.  There aren’t two sides to every story… there are five, or ten, or hundreds…

If bullies aren’t “born” but are created through perverse motivation and circumstances, why continue to give the dichotomy credibility? Why are we willing, in the face of empirical evidence that the dichotomy is impoverished and wrong, to go about using it when setting anti-bullying policy?

My word of the week:

Quixotism (/kwɪkˈsɒtɪzəm/ or /kiːˈhoʊtɪzəm/) is impracticality in pursuit of ideals, especially those ideals manifested by rash, lofty and romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action.^[1] It also serves to describe an idealism without regard to practicality. An impulsive person or act might be regarded as quixotic.

Quixotism is usually related to "over-idealism", meaning an idealism that doesn't take consequence or absurdity into account. It is also related to naïve romanticism and toutopianism.

Interesting…

Stone Brothers Racing confirms international line up for GC600

This was originally posted on Richard’s F1… Check it out here!

 

Stone Brothers Racing has confirmed its three international co-drivers for the Armor All Gold Coast 600 in October. 

The French IndyCar driver Simon Pagenaud will partner Lee Holdsworth, the Dutchman Jeroen Bleekemolen will drive alongside Shane van Gisbergen and Australian sportscar and GT driver David Brabham is teamed up with Tim Slade for the third year of the GC600 under its international co-driver format.

Ross Stone, Team Principal for SBR was positive about the opportunity and experience for the drivers and the team. 

“All three international drivers will bring a wealth of driving experience to the team and in the past both David and Simon have placed in the top five in this event.

Lee Holdsworth and Simon Pagenaud will be in Car #4 IRWIN Racing.

Pagenaud and Holdsworth competed together and achieved a third place in last year’s Sunday race for Fujitsu Racing GRM.  The Frenchman is looking forward to another great year and was full of praise for his partner. 

“I’m ecstatic to compete again in such a great event at the Gold Coast. I had a great time and a fantastic experience last year,” said Pagenaud.

“This team has had such great accomplishments and I felt very blessed when I got a call from Ross! Reuniting with Lee Holdsworth is a tremendous opportunity. Lee and I really went along well last year and I managed to bring a surf board home. I will plan on bringing my A game to the table and hopefully aim for two surfboards this year.

“Lee is an awesome driver and I look forward to helping him secure the points he will need at the end of the year for his championship.”

Holdsworth has also expressed his approval of the set up.

“I’m really pleased to have Simon come back and drive with me as we did pretty well last year with a podium finish. “With Simon being familiar with the V8 Supercars that will definitely help us, plus we both know what we want out of the car and he is happy with the way I set the car up. I think that will all work really well.

“I’m looking forward to driving with him again because he is a great driver and a great guy, and it’s good to have him back.”

In Car #9 SP Tools, we find Shane van Gisbergen and Jeroen Bleekemolen. 

This is the Dutchman Bleekemolen’s debut in V8 Supercars, however there is no doubting his driving experience will put him in good stead.  With a resume boasting winning the 2008 Le Mans and being a two time Porsche Supercup Champion, Car #9 is a definite contender. 

Shane van Gisbergen speaks highly of the Dutchman. 

“Jeroen has won pretty much everything, he’s racing almost every weekend and in all different types of cars. So I think he will be able to adapt pretty quick with the one test day.

“It will be pretty cool having two drivers of Dutch heritage together. It is always hard watching another international driver in your car but hopefully we can prepare him as best we can with video and the test day. There is a lot of work to be done to make sure he gets comfortable with the car but I am sure we can do it.”

Jeroen, a fan of the V8’s, is looking forward to the challenge. 

“I’m really happy to be joining SBR and Shane for the GC600. I have followed Australian V8 Supercars for many years and think it’s one of the best racing series in the world. To be joining one of the best teams and driver in the series makes it even better.

“I will have to adapt quickly to the car, as many of my international competitors have done this race many times before. But I’m really up to the challenge and think we should have a chance to do well. Personally I think it would be great if we could get a podium finish and take home a surf board.

Bleekemolen also had great words to say of the coastal city.

“Of course the Gold Coast is a fantastic place to be once the racing is over, so overall it should be a great experience.”

Lastly, in Car #47 Lucky 7 Racing we find Tim Slade teamed up with the accomplished David Brabham. 

Brabham is no stranger to the V8s scene, and he returns to the SBR and to the GC for the first time since 2010.  Brabham’s winning list includes the 2009 Le Mans 24 Hour and 1997 Bathurst 1000 winner and he is currently racing for United Autosports in the Blancpain Endurance Series and in the FIA World Endurance Championship for JRM Racing.

Tim Slade is rightly pretty excited about the entire affair.

“I’m stoked to have Brab’s for the Gold Coast event. He is an extremely experienced guy and I think a lot of people forget just how much he has done. It’s pretty cool to think your co-driver has actually raced in Formula 1 once upon a time.

“He has driven with Stone Brothers in the past and is familiar with the car and the team so I don’t think I could pick anyone better from the list of people doing the event. He is someone that I can learn a few things from so I am really happy to have the opportunity to drive with him this year.”

David Brabham is definitely keen for a V8 race and win to supplement his CV…

“I am really looking forward the returning to SBR, I have driven for them at Bathurst, Phillip Island and the GC600, so I know the team well. I look forward to working with the teams other co drivers and they are very talented, so with the three of us I am sure SBR will be strong.

“Tim Slade is in great form and the team are consistent top 10 competitors. The goal for the event would be to win. I have never won a V8 Supercars race so it would be a great addition to my CV.”

So today’s announcement takes the total number of international co-driver confirmations up to 12. Are there any surprises for you? What are your thoughts on the international flavour?  It is definitely a great opportunity for some international exposure and for the drivers to learn a little from each other…

Let’s see who else will join us in October! 

Yassmin Abdel-Magied RichardsF1.com Journalist [Images via IRWIN Racing]

Villeneuve: Back for More!

I am currently writing for Richard’s F1 as the V8 Correspondent and will post links to my articles here. 

Great news for Canadian driver Jacques Villeneuve who has now been confirmed as a driver for the next two V8 Supercar rounds. 

For more, check out the article on Richard’s F1.  

History comes to Queensland!

This is my first post with Richard’s F1! Originally posted here.

A pristine Can-Am McLaren M8E and a Chevron B16 made their Queensland debut among the hundreds of historic race cars at the National ‘Historic Queensland’ Race Meeting at Morgan Park Raceway in Warwick, Queensland this weekend.

Held by the Historic Racing Car Club (HRCC) of Queensland, the “Historic Queensland”  Motor Race meeting for 2012 brought together well over 200 entries for a weekend of exciting races and regularity trials.  The event has run for over thirty years, attracting competitors from all over the country and providing an opportunity for motorsport enthusiasts to showcase their wares and shake off the winter blues with some good old fashioned racing.

Historic cars are those from between roughly the 1920’s to the 1980’s.  The classes at this event ranged from historic Formula Ford vehicles to production sports cars and everything historic in between.  Star attractions at this year’s competition included the 1971 Can-Am McLaren M8E, the 1983 Chevron B16, 1957 Lotus Eleven and the 1977 Osella PA5; all beautiful pieces of machinery that didn’t fail to excite the enthusiastic crowds gathered on the windy Warwick grandstands.

As with all the cars, the McLaren came with unique history; it finished 9th in the Can-Am series in 1971.  With an aluminium 496 Chevy 780 Horsepower engine, one can understand how it easily outshone the competitors in its class!  The Chevron B16, not to be outdone, won the Nurburgring 500km in 1969.  The history and stories of each of the cars at the race meet made for an extremely interesting and enriching environment and the owners were more than happy to share their stories.

Happy to share stories the owners and drivers may have been, but that didn’t mean they didn’t want to win races! Some very quick drivers made their way around the track, including young names such as Dylan Higgins, a 16 year old Formula Ford driver and young Jimmy Vernon, a 15 year old from New South Wales.  Dylan had a fantastic weekend of wins and is definitely one to look out for.  Other young drivers included the third year apprentice Ashley Heffernan, 17 year old Matt Campbell and mechanical engineering student Ash Willoughby in a 1977 Formula Ford.

The young ones weren’t the only ones gunning for good drives; fierce overtaking and on-track action was seen throughout the weekend.  In the Historic Sport Car’s group, the Tiga Sports 2000 met an unfortunate early end to its race weekend: fishtailing, spinning out and colliding with the barriers on the last lap.  Fortunately the driver was fine, but unfortunately, the Tiga will definitely need some major TLC before it finds its way back on the track. 

Pleasantly though, the on-track drama was the only drama to be found.  The event was a true joy to attend, not only because of the spectacle but also due to the sense of community; it truly felt like an event that was all about the cars.

Helen Voysey, one of the senior officials at the event put it elegantly, “I love it, I really do.  I have grown up with a lot of these cars and I can relate to the 5000’s and the CanAms.  There is no politics here though, this event is all about when motor racing was fun.  It is all for the love of the sport”

For the love of the sport indeed! Many drivers, owners and officials though expressed their desire to see more young people involved.  Peter Mohr, the President of the HRCC encouraged young people to jump right in.

“Come to meetings, come to our next event, bring your friends: we are always looking for new members!”

So, why not?  I look forward to attending the next HRCC event and learning more about the cars of yesteryear.  I recommend you all check out the nearest HRCC event in your state and see if you can get involved as well! This – the sense of community, knowledge transfer and sharing, carburettors and self funded owner-drivers – this to me, epitomises the essence of motorsport.

How about you? Have you been involved in your local HRCC? How do you feel about “Historics”?

Covers: Come As You Are

Yuna, a Muslim Malaysian singer with a soulful version of Nirvana’s classic.

Joining the Richard’s F1 Team!

I am excited to let you all know that I am now a writer with the fabulous motorsport blog, Richard’s F1!

Check out my intro here…and I look forward to seeing you on the site!

Yassmin will be taking over the reins of our already very popular V8 Supercars coverage from our journalist Geoff Burke, who will be freed up to assist in more Formula 1 feature article writing.

Additionally, Yassmin will also contribute a host of feature and media review articles forRichardsF1.com, which she will be looking to share with our many readers worldwide.

Images from Richard’s F1

Luscious Links

  So this has been a little while coming... here are some interesting reads for your consumption! Lots of food for thought...and some music to soothe the soul.

The future is better than you think:

Perhaps the most significant change of the next decade will be the dramatic increase in worldwide connectivity via the Internet. The online community is projected to grow from 2 billion people in 2010 to 5 billion by 2020. Three billion new minds are about to join the global brain trust. What will they dream? What will they discover? What will they invent? These are minds that the rest of society has never had access to before, and their collective economic and creative boost becomes our final force: the power of “the rising billion.” We are living in a time of unprecedented opportunity.

The Battleground that is Saudi Women in Sport: Don't forget that most Saudi women are banned from sport

Physical education for girls is banned in the public school system and while there are more than 150 official sports clubs regulated by the sports ministry, general presidency of youth welfare, none of them even allow women on the grounds, never mind to actually play. Saudi women are not only not allowed to participate, they are barred as spectators in all major stadiums.

Great Essay: Egyptian women and Mohammed Morsi

Morsi won the election by a slim margin, and is now President of Egypt. His first few days in office have already been eventful. He banned portraits of himself in public spaces, asked for minimum security when moving around Egypt, met the families of the martyrs and guaranteed them access to him directly, and has announced that his two vice-presidents will be a woman and a Coptic Christian**. These moves have already impressed many both inside and outside Egypt, and are a welcome change from Mubarak’s reign. An important point is that Morsi won the election because he was supported by a variety of social actors, including activists, revolutionaries, youth groups, and Egyptians who did not want a member of the old regime to win. This means that Morsi has a lot to prove. He knows that he would not be President without the support of Egyptians who do not necessarily identify with or support the Muslim Brotherhood or their ideals. The pressure on Morsi is immense, and the expectations endless.

**CNN reports on Morsi appointing a woman and a Coptic Christian as his VP’s, a smart move indeed…

The revolution must be peaceful: A really interesting look on whether revolts must be peaceful, or if that can actually succeed? A question I have been asking of myself lately…

While there is no doubt that a peaceful revolution is a good thing to aspire to, I wonder if it can simultaneously be effective? Can brute power be removed peacefully? Can an entrenched regime that doesn’t have second thoughts about using violence be brought down through peaceful demonstrations and organizing? On the other hand, could it be the case that we are taught that peaceful people power is pointless and ineffective? Are we somehow bringing ourselves down to their level of inhumanness by engaging in violence?

The Little Syrian Town That Could: Photos from Foreign Policy

Some amazing tunes from around Africa…

(Start the above at about 2:50 for the music)

That is all for today, stay tuned for more though! The Interweb is full of such interesting information…I shall never sleep at this rate! =o