SaudiSphere

Saudi Women Bloggers Voice their Opinions

Check out Rasheed Abou-Alsamh’s article Saudi women Unveil Opinions Online which talks about the blocking of Saudi Eve’s blog and the challenges that face other Saudi women bloggers. Rasheed also mentions the efforts by some Saudi male zealots to control what women are writing on their blogs. The Article has quotes Farah, Jo and Saudi Eve. Excellent!

Today’s game

I am not going to talk about today's Saudi -Ukraine game. We got beaten really bad although some other Saudi bloggers had high hopes. Was it expected? 

(Cartoon: Alen Lauzan Falcon from Chile)

Celebrating Manal Quota’s Success

Manal Quota, a Saudi Arabian student at UCLA has been selected to deliver student commencement address [Via Crossroads Arabia].

A hard-charging political science major from Saudi Arabia has been selected to deliver the student address at the June 16 commencement exercises for UCLA's College of Letters and Science. Manal Quota, an honor student with a distinguished record of political involvement and community service, will share the dais with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is scheduled to keynote the ceremony.

"Manal brought to UCLA an enormous spirit, and her accomplishments are extraordinary," said Marc Mayerson, assistant dean of social sciences and head of the speaker selection committee. "She is truly an international citizen and scholar. In her we see the best of our common cause and humanity."

My wishes to Manal for more successes and achievements. You make us proud!

Options

          

David Horsey

Q: Is English Wikipedia Blocked in Saudi Arabia?

I read that it is now actually blocked in Riyadhawi’s blog (Arabic). Is this true?!

Iran welcomes its first patch of religious bloggers

When it comes to combating the popularity of independent minded bloggers, the Iranian regime is following an old age strategy: if you can’t beat them, join them

In tandem with its efforts to control access to online content, the
Iranian government appears to be building an Internet discourse of its
own. In recent weeks, the regime has officially established an "Office

of Religious Blogs" designed to provide research, training, and support to clerical bloggers operating inside the Islamic Republic. Based in Qom, the center claims to have already trained some 500 novice bloggers in the use of the Internet as part of an effort to craft a pro-regime message aimed at the growing number of web-savvy Iranians.

Should we be surprised? Not really. Actually, there is an aura of familiarity between this and the efforts to regularize the Saudi blogosphere. They must be really losing ground and desperate for controlling information.

I Heart NY

                               

I believe that NYC is the center of contemporary world. And for special reasons, I love it even more. Nothing could ever come close to this beloved city. (I just had to say that!)

 

It is a tie!

Saudi Arabia 2 – Tunisia 2

Great game and spectacular goals

And you can find a review of the game at Yazeed's blog.

                  

                     

                  

                           

                      

Media Center

I have been invited to contribute to the We Inform blog at the MediaCenter.org. Fellow blogger Lisa Goldman sent them my way (thanks Lisa :) and you can find my first post about the Saudi blogging experience here. The Media Center is a nonprofit think tank with a mission of building a better-informed society in a connected world. It hosted a Global Forum, We Media 2006, in London during the month of May, and you can read all about it at the conference’s website.

Boo-Freakin-Hoo!!??

Michelle Malkin was having one of her psychotic episodes on Fox news today. When asked about the suicide of three Guantanamo Bay detainees, she said that the reaction to that should be: Boo-Freakin-Hoo! Talk about class and language choices! Seriously, you know that there is something terribly wrong when Bill O’Reilly gets slightly offended by such a comment.

In case you want a disturbing mental image repeating itself in your head for a couple of hours, you can watch the video here, it is completely up to you.

And for the mental damage that I am sustaining (image cant go away), I, too, have a gift for Malkin and her likes, enjoy and use generously! (click for enlargement)