Shakesville

The Real Arab World

I know very little about the Middle East and the Arab world. That's not surprising; like a lot of people, all I know is what I hear on the news or read in the newspapers, and I have no ancestral connection to any of the people there. So when I was asked if I would like to read and review Live from Jordan by Benjamin Orbach, I was at first hesitant; I was expecting a dry recitation of the history of the region from biblical times and a rehash of talking points from the differing sides.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Ben's year in the Middle East, told in a series of letters home, is a warm and person-to-person tale of the ordinary lives and trials that the people of Jordan, Syria, Israel, and Egypt go through every day just to make a living and a life. There are no talking points from emissaries or ambassadors here; just a grad student from Pittsburgh with a background in Middle East studies, learning Arabic as he goes (and teaching English to eager students), and finding that underneath all the many differences between the East and the West in so many different ways, we are really a lot more similar in the mundane ways that really matter: we want to live our lives in peace, with dignity and understanding, and we want others to respect our culture and not impose their lives on us. We as Americans expect that as a part of the American dream, and Ben shows us that it's a universal dream as well.

For someone who knew very little about that world, I found a lot of common ground for understanding. For example, the plight of the Palestinians, people who are exiled from their homeland and are hoping against all hope to have their dreams of a place called Palestine -- a place that never really existed -- restored to them. In a lot of ways their stories remind me of the stories I hear from the older Cuban exiles here in Miami who have made every attempt they can to preserve what they brought with them when they left fifty years ago and who dream of going back to a place and a life that they left. The sad truth is that nothing is the way it was, and even if by some miracle they could have all they hoped for, there is no guarantee that it would be enough. It's incredibly tragic and altogether human.

History provided the author with an interesting backdrop. Ben arrived in Jordan a year after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and he left six months after the invasion of Iraq by the United States. The tension and fear in the people in Jordan and Egypt is palpable, and the distrust and animosity towards America -- but not Americans -- is couched in every conversation. In one letter, he looks at the invasion of Iraq and, writing from 2003, shows remarkable foresight as to what will be the long-term result of our preemptive invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation. But in his tales, which are poignant, funny, and genuinely human, he shows us a world that is in so many ways like our own, with its foundations in religion and faith, distrust of authority, fascination with celebrity glitz, revulsion at material excess and immodesty, and through it all an understanding that we are all human and share far more values than either side is aware of.

If you want to really understand the Middle East, I suppose you can read a lot of history and analysis from think tanks who pay a lot of consultants to put them together. Or you can pick up this book written by an insightful and charming guy who saw the real Arab world from his tiny apartment balcony in Amman, the coffee shops and three-table eateries in Cairo, from the streets of the West Bank, and a barber's chair in all three places.

(Cross-posted.)

Open Wide...

Take Your Boobs and Go Home

Shorter Nicholas Kristof: Hillary's a bitch, and she only has a right to stay in the campaign if she behaves like a good girl. Also, the Clintons are an amorphous two-headed beast who are barely Democrats.

There is a fair argument to be made about the wisdom of a protracted primary battle if it continues to be as bloody as it has been (though I'm not sure how many people outside the blogosphere and punditry actually view it as all that bloody). But that argument can be made without pretending the Clinton campaign is the only one playing hardball, and it can be made without talking about the Clintons—who, despite one's opinion of them, have raised shitloads of cash and garnered lots of international goodwill on behalf of the Democratic Party—like they're unwelcome interlopers in the party, and it can most certainly be made without comments like: "If Mrs. Clinton can run a high-minded, civil campaign and rein in her proxies, then she has every right to continue through the next few primaries."

Actually, Mr. Kristof, she has every right no matter what kind of campaign she runs. That's an American right, and it is operable for men and uppity bitches.

Open Wide...

Big Shitpile-a-Go-Go

Equity Loans as Next Round in Credit Crisis:

Little by little, millions of Americans surrendered equity in their homes in recent years. Lulled by good times, they borrowed — sometimes heavily — against the roofs over their heads.

Now the bill is coming due. As the housing market spirals downward, home equity loans, which turn home sweet home into cash sweet cash, are becoming the next flash point in the mortgage crisis.

Americans owe a staggering $1.1 trillion on home equity loans — and banks are increasingly worried they may not get some of that money back.

$1.1 trillion?! Cheesus.

And good luck getting out from under the debt by shifting it, selling the house, or, oh I dunno, moving to another city for a job where you can make more money, since many lenders, in an attempt to make sure they get that money back, "are taking the extraordinary step of preventing some people from selling their homes or refinancing their mortgages unless they pay off all or part of their home equity loans first."

Clusterfucktastrope, party of 300 million, your table is ready.

(Btw, I really loathe the framing of these stories as "Party's over; time to settle with the pub!" The economy has sucked for a very long time for a whole lot of people in the vast middle of this land of milk and honey, and lots of those home equity loans were certainly a necessity, not a bit of whimsy to pay for a top shelf holiday to Olde Europa, for Maude's sake.)

[H/T John Cole.]

Open Wide...

Juxtaposey!

If the "second RFK shooter" happens to be RFK himself, I believe Yahoo News has hit the Juxtaposaheadliney trifecta!

If they want to go for four, I suggest "After Eight Years of Bush, Leading Democrats Still Not Crushing McCain in Polls" to go with the X-Files headline.

Open Wide...

The Gayest Looks for Leno Collection

Morning, Shakers! There are almost a hundred new pictures that have been added to the "Gayest Looks for Leno" project...but if you want to see them, you're going to have to go here:

Thanks so much to the wonderful Jeff Whitty for all his help in pulling the site together and for being an inspiration. And huge thanks to everyone who has participated so far. Pass it on; encourage others to send in their gayest looks; I'll keep adding them as fast as I can.

Maybe at long last, Mr. Leno will get the message that gay jokes aren't funny, and we are not amused.

---------------

Explanation here. Email me your Gayest Look for Jay Leno, or drop a link in comments, and I'll keep adding 'em!