Is it just me or does everyone in Jordan seem to be suffering from a B12 deficiency these days? Everyone seems to either be taking a course of B12 supplements or knows someone who is. Weird.

Roba says:
i love colors
nada says:
i knoooooow
heik yummmmmmm
a7keelik sir
i smell colors
Roba says:
hehe
can i blog that?
nada says:
inno each color has a smell
Roba says:
willa 3anjad sir?
nada says:

no mish sir
bas how r u gonna blog the smell
Roba says:
hehe
whats the smell of yellow?
its warm..
and sweet
yummmm
nada says:
no it’s sour
it’s sweet
ah
heik contradicting
Roba says:
yum
nada says:
purple yummmm
o red
aaaaah
heik
cherry
raspberry
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

num num

:)
Artsy-fartsy question of the day for everyone:
What’s your most delicious color?

Women’s right to equal citizenship is guaranteed by the majority of Arab constitutions, as well as by international law. Yet across the Arab world, women are denied their right to nationality – a crucial component of citizenship. Women who marry men of other nationalities cannot confer their original nationality to their husbands or children. Only fathers, not mothers, can confer their nationality to their children.

The Women’s Learning Partnership joins with regional partners in the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf to call for:

• Legal reform enabling women to confer their nationality to their husbands and children without condition
• Full implementation of reformed nationality laws and equal access to these laws for all women
• ecognition of women as equal citizens in all areas of life

It’s so refreshing and so fantastic to see such campaigns coming out of the Arab world. We seriously need to start working on such reforms. Sign the petition.

Don’t you just love it when female Arab bloggers go a step further?
Go Ihath :)

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”—Harper Lee, “To Kill a Mockingbird”

~

It is disgusting how the world keeps going backwards with each passing day. More censorship, more intolerance, more hate, more boundaries, more limits, aaaaah!

What does someone like me do? I just want to live life the way I want to live it, without being preached and without preaching anyone. I want my opinions to be tolerated, and I want to hear out other people’s opinions and ideas. I want the freedom to hold or consider a fact, viewpoint, or thought, regardless of anyone else’s view.

Unfortunately, things don’t look promising. Life all over the world is constantly becoming closer to an Orwellian world, with Ministries of Truth popping around all over the place, controlling information, “rectifying” history to make them conform to “utopian dreams”, denouncing then banishing works of literature from library shelves as “objectionable reads” (“1984″ is banned by the way).

Here’s the American Library Association of banned books for 2006:

1. “Harry Potter” (Series) (J.K. Rowling)
2. “To Kill a Mockingbird” (Harper Lee)
3. “The Color Purple” (Alice Walker)
4. “The Outsiders” (S.E. Hinton)
5. “Lord of the Flies” (William Golding)
6. “Of Mice and Men” (John Steinbeck)
7. “Goosebumps” (Series) (R.L. Stine)
8. “How to Eat Fried Worms” (Thomas Rockwell)
9. “The Catcher in the Rye” (J.D. Salinger)
10. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (Mark Twain)
11. “The Giver” (Lois Lowry)
12. “Brave New World” (Aldous Huxley)
13. “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (Mark Twain)
14. “Captain Underpants” (Dav Pilkey)
15. “The Anarchist Cookbook” (William Powell)
16. “Carrie” (Stephen King)
17. “Flowers for Algernon” (Daniel Keyes)
18. “The Dead Zone” (Stephen King)
19. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” (Maya Angelou)
20. “Go Ask Alice” (anonymous)
21. “American Psycho” (Bret Easton Ellis)
22. “The Chocolate War” (Robert Cormier)
23. “James and the Giant Peach” (Roald Dahl)
24. “The Pigman” (Paul Zindel)
25. “A Wrinkle in Time” (Madeleine L’Engle)

It is indeed laughable, and even more so as I read more than half of these books as required readings for school. I first read Harry Potter, the first banned book on the list, when I was bored one day and decided to borrow my brother’s 6th grade reading material, Harry Potter, as it looked more interesting than TV. I first read the second book on the list, “To Kill a Mockingbird”, in the 7th grade for my literature class. When I was in the 5th grade, I owned most of the “Goosebumps” series (banned on the list as number 7), which I was introduced to by my English teacher.

Other titles in the list account for some of my favorite childhood reads; “A Wrinkle in Time”, “James and the Giant Peach”, and “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”. I can’t believe that they are deemed of negative influence to children today.

The world seriously needs to wake up, and quickly. Enough with closing our eyes and pretending that if we don’t allow stories to be told, actions that have already happened are erased. Things don’t work that way.

It is unthinkable that we live in this kind of world in the year 2006, and that this is happening in the country that is trying to wage the international war for freedom. Freedom starts at home.

Explore banned books with Google

I don’t think anything excites me as much buying a new book, and in the past few months, I’ve bought a very large amount, the latest being bought today. So exciting.
Here are some of the books waiting on my shelf for their turn to be read,

1. “Orientalism”, Edward Said
2. “Palace Walk”, Naguib Mahfouz
3. “What is Typography?”, David Jury
4. “Seeret Madinah” (Tale of a City), Abdulrahman Muneef
5. “Pop: Truth and Power at the Coca Cola Company”, Constance Hays
6. “The Best Tables, Chairs, Lights”, Mel Byars
7. “1,000 Greetings”, Peter King
8. “The Historian”, Elizabeth Kostova
9. “Graphic Design America”,