A video about the awesomeness of CMU-Q's BotBall program, which was started by my good friend Leland, and is now run by my good friend and colleague Mohamed.

And, even if you're not interested in robots or Mohamed, American viewers may enjoy watching it just to get an idea of what high school students in Qatar are like (or what the CMU building here looks like!).

A meme/challenge from dachte:

Name 8 songs you like that you don't think most people on your friends list have heard.

I have provided YouTube (or in one case Amazon) links so you can listen to them. :-)

1. Chiisana Koi no Uta by Mongol 800
   
2. Holding On by Alex Day
   
3. Don't say 'Lazy' by Yoko Hikasa
   
4. Just for Now by Imogen Heap (awesomest live performance ever)
   
5. Vexed and Glorious by Kenna
   
6. The Housewife's Lament by Anne Hills & Cindy Mangsen
   
7. For Fruits Basket by Ritsuko Okazaki
   
8. One in a Million by Uncle Bonsai

Had you heard any of them before?

What music do you like that I haven't heard?

EDIT: Justin just said "I can't believe you didn't include any Hank Green!" and I went, "Oh no! I saw the meme and thought "Anglerfish Song" but then I forgot to include it!" So here is a Song about an Anglerfish. I hope you like it.

I want to talk today about a serious human rights issue in the Muslim world, an issue that strikes at the heart of all that is wrong with Arab society: The Ghutra.

It's very rare to see a Gulf Arab man in public without a ghutra, and as we all know, people who appear in public in headscarves are obviously in a shocking state of subjugation and servitude, whether they know it or not. Since it would be preposterous to believe any person would choose to wear an item of clothing that I personally don't wear, I am led to the self-evident conclusion that the men of the Gulf region are being forced to wear the ghutra by their oppressive female overlords. (Overladies?)

The ghutra is clearly designed by these female oppressors to limit men's mobility. It is impossible to run in a ghutra, since it would come flying off one's head; this is clearly intended to prevent men from running away when their wives start nagging them. Even tipping one's head to the side or slouching may unbalance the 'agal -- the black cord that holds the ghutra in place -- so men are forced to walk, sit and stand in an unnaturally erect, stiff-necked posture. Oh, the chiropractic bills they must suffer to satisfy societal sexism!

Even more insidiously, the ghutra impedes equitable male education in the Gulf. Wearing the ghutra distracts boys from their studies, since (as any professor can tell you) they are forced to spend 10 minutes of every hour adjusting the angle of their agal, flipping and reflipping the corners of their ghutra, and so on. Who can concentrate on abstract mathematical theories when one's "cobra" is coming untucked? Meanwhile, the girls in the class, undistracted by their practical, pinned hujub, are able to concentrate better on the material and thus throw the curve. This dastardly plot to undermine men's educational success is obviously working, since girls outperform boys at every level of education in Qatar.

The oppression doesn't end with the ghutra, though. Muslim boys are taught from a young age that showing certain parts of their bodies in public is sinful. The area between their belly button and knees is called their "awrah," or "defectiveness" -- even the terminology itself shows how Muslim men have been indoctrinated into seeing their bodies as inferior! Of course, we from more enlightened countries understand that no parts of the body are embarrassing to show in public, which is why we walk around naked all the time.

Islam's primitive belief that some body parts should be covered presents a significant barrier to integration with the West, since instead of wearing Speedos at the beach or pool like normal Europeans, Muslim men are forced to wear baggy swim trunks that conceal their "awrah." As we know from the recent burqini controversy, it's "unhygenic and unsafe" to wear anything larger than a postage stamp in a pool, so these swim trunks need to be banned immediately throughout the Western world. After all, there's nothing at all ridiculous about us banning other cultures' clothing and then accusing them of being opposed to integration when they object.

So by all means, let's not talk about actual social problems in the Arab world. Let's not talk about human trafficking, about freedom of speech, about the way lack of enforcement of the labor law allows de facto slavery. Let's not treat Gulf society like a normal culture that has good sides and bad sides, struggles and victories, achievements to be proud of and problem areas it's still working on. Instead, let's keep our focus on bits of cloth and the body parts they cover. That's what's really important.

Note: The above is satire, written to parody articles that claim that Muslim women must be oppressed by the hijab.

Our cat, Oliver, went outside a week ago today, and hasn't been seen since. We walked the compound over and over looking for him and distributed flyers to every house, but no news. So, after a week, we're assuming the worst.

My main feeling at this point, frankly, is that I don't ever want to have a cat again. Both Oliver and our previous cat Tribble were miserable indoor cats, so we let them outside, and in both cases that seems to have ended disastrously. I just can't cope with having to choose between my pet's happiness and lifespan.

While looking for a picture of Oliver to post here, I realized that both of the two videos I have of Oliver are of him playing with musical instruments. So instead I'll share those:

I said recently that living here makes me appreciate freedom of speech more. Here's a good example from today's Peninsula:

DOHA: The Civil Defence chief, Brigadier Abdullah Mohamed Al Suwaidi, yesterday issued a warning to rumour mongers. He said some people had sent text messages to their friends and relatives saying there had been casualties in yesterday’s fire. “I warn such people against spreading rumours. There have been no casualties. People sending such SMS messages will be taken to task. We will initiate legal action against them,” he was quoted as saying by QNA.

It's no secret that the government can read all our text messages, so I avoid texting sensitive or controversial messages (as the EFF recommends in the US, too, by the way). It wouldn't have occurred to me that passing on a rumor might fall into that category, though.

This weekend I went to the Qatar Philharmonic, along with Justin and our friend Jon. Yes, you read that right: Doha has a real philharmonic orchestra these days. I guess we're coming up in the world!

Also this weekend, I learned about the Andamanese, i.e., the aboriginal people of the Andaman Islands just west of Burma. When Europeans first encountered them in the 19th century, the Andamanese had no way of making fire. They used fire, and are in fact apparently unusually afraid of the dark, but to have a fire each tribe has to keep embers alive from previous fires -- even when they're traveling, on hunting expeditions, or canoeing!

The Andamanese turn out to be pretty fascinating, because they've been cut off from the rest of humanity since they wandered into the Andamans during the last glacial period, probably around 50,000 years ago. To put that in perspective, when they left Eurasia, the Neanderthals were alive and well. Because of this, and because their culture is extremely conservative and slow to change, some think the Andamanese may be more like our ancestors than any other living culture.

Oh, and when I say "living culture," I mean "the sad remnant left alive by the British, who shot at and enslaved them, and infected them with diseases they can't cope with." Small wonder some of them (the Sentineli) still attack outsiders on sight. If you've heard of the Andamanese at all, it's probably because when the Indian government sent helicopters to check on them after the 2004 tsunami, the Sentineli shot at the helicopters with bows and arrows.

Bows and (unfletched) arrows are pretty much the extent of Andamanese technology. They also never learned to cultivate plants or domesticate animals. That said, the Great Andamanese view of domesticated animals can be inferred from the fact that they call the era before contact with the West "the time before the dog." You have to love a culture that considers the arrival of dogs to be the beginning of a new era!

"Ngig-panamaya" is an Andamanese insult, by the way. In Aka-Bea, it means "You sunken-eyed one!"

This week is Banned Books Week in the States, which is according to the Banned Books Week website "the only national celebration of the freedom to read."

This is one of those freedoms that may not seem like a big deal, but you begin to appreciate it a lot more when you live in a country that decides for you what you're allowed to read.

Behind the cut is the list of the most frequently banned and/or challenged books of the 1990s. (This decade is still incomplete, so no data yet, though you can see the top ten of 2008 here.)

The ones I've read are in bold.

( Banned Books Meme )

Qatar got a Constitutional Court yesterday!!!

This is tremendously exciting. Qatar has had a constitution for five years now, but there has not heretofore been any mechanism for determining whether (preexisting or new) laws are constitutional and changing them if they're not. As you can imagine, that has made the existence of a constitution somewhat academic. Now, though, there will be a way to change the laws that violate the principles of the constitution!

Hooray for judicial review!

To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?
-Chief Justice Marshall, Marbury v. Madison.

Meme from nicodemusrat:

If you like, post this meme and your current wallpaper.
Explain in no more than five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

My wallpaper on my laptop is a photo of Himeji Castle, because, while I've loved all the countries I've been fortunate enough to visit, there aren't many that I actively pine for. I pine for Japan.




At work, I rotate among 22 photos from our travels, generally trying for one per country:

• India: Khajuraho at sunset
  
• Egypt: Ramses II, Abu Simbel
  
• Jordan: The Monastery, Petra
  
• Italy: Ponte Vecchio, Florence
  
• Qatar: a desert safari with friends
  
• France: me at the Chambord chateau
  
• England: daffodils at St. Mary's Abbey, York
  
• Gabon: Jeff's close-up of a crab
  
• Gabon: Gorillas at Langoue Bai
  
• Thailand: cute monkeys grooming
  
• Thailand: Marjorie kayaking
  
• Turkey: Sokullu Mehmet Pasha Mosque, Istanbul
  
• Turkey: view from the Lycian Way
  
• Czech Republic: Jewish cemetery in Mikulov
  
• Sri Lanka: me riding an elephant
  
• Sri Lanka: fields of tea
  
• Oman: the village of Balad Sayt
  
• Thailand: sunset in Ao Nang
  
• Japan: the Great Buddha Hall of Todai-ji, Nara
  
• Japan: a more zoomed-in version of this maple tree in Isui-En, a Meiji-era garden in Nara
  
• Japan: the gate to Honen-in Temple, Kyoto
  
• Spain: a beautiful ceiling in Gaudí's Casa Batlló, Barcelona

Those of you who'd like to see what Qatar looks like in person will enjoy the short films posted online by the Doha Tribeca Film Festival.

My favorite is A Visit to Souk Waqif. In addition showing you my favorite place in town and teaching you a little about falconry, perfume and traditional music, it will show you how "Doha" and "Qatar" are really pronounced. :-) (Bonus points if you notice the Starbucks and Coffee Beanery logos in the oh-so-authentic traditional souq.)

The Doha TFF has been holding workshops for aspiring filmmakers, and has posted some of the one-minute videos they filmed. It's really exciting to see something like this going on in Doha! I enjoyed all of them, but of the ones I've seen so far, my favorites are:

• Just Another Thursday Night, about the bar scene in Doha. This is the MOST TRUE MOVIE EVER MADE. (Fact: I've never gone to that bar without me or someone in my group being inappropriately touched. Fact: One of the men IN THAT VERY VIDEO once creepily hit on me, and yes he knew I was married.)
  
• The Blackberry Man, a little predictable but still funny.
  
• Like Father Like Son, adorable and funny.
  
• The Hopscotch of Life, a simple message with good imagery.

On arriving in Doha, one of our math professors got into a waiting taxi and automatically started putting on his seat belt.

"You don't need that here," the driver said.

"Why not?" the math professor asked. "Don't you have physics in Qatar?"

In an attempt to get young, hip Emiratis to wear their seatbelts, the UAE just announced the Fashionable Seatbelt Campaign. It is what it sounds like: companies will be selling designer seatbelts, under the (fair) assumption that Emirati teens will wear ANYTHING that says Gucci on it.

Ten out of ten for ingenuity!

In Contemporary World Issues II, the third-semester core course in my undergraduate major in International Relations, we studied biases in the reporting of overseas events in American news media. One of our texts argued that, instead of helping explain important political or even sociological movements in the rest of the world, the media focuses on sensationalized stories that tend to portray non-Americans as irrational and even frightening.

One of our case studies was the tragic story of an American woman who was beaten nearly to death by a mob in Guatemala, because they believed she was stealing babies for their organs.

The Washington Post article we read had little explanation for what might be behind this attack:

Rumors of baby stealing have circulated in the region for years, but they exploded in Guatemala this spring. It is impossible to know what -- or who -- is behind them, but human rights observers and Western diplomats suspect that right-wing elements in the military are behind the baby-parts stories -- that these forces want to destabilize the country and further weaken President Ramirode Leon Carpio, whose government has been negotiating a peace agreement to end the country's 33-year guerrilla war.

A Reuter correspondent called the mob's mentality "Magic realism on acid."

But now, 15 years after Weinstock was attacked, the Guatemalan government has just disclosed that hundreds of Guatemalan babies WERE stolen, by the military, to be sold to adoptive parents in the US (and several other countries). In some cases, the babies' parents were even killed.

I guess that Guatemalan mob had good reason to be scared of babysnatchers after all.

The Qatar Animal Welfare Socity, where Justin and I used to volunteer as dog-walkers, burned down to the ground yesterday. Most of the cats and a couple dogs died, but around 50 dogs, 15 cats, and the farm animals survived.

The surviving dogs and cats are being housed at Qatar Veterinary Centre, the Veterinary Surgery, and Pampered Pets, but they need blankets and bedding, dog and cat food, cat litter, collars and leads, toys, crates and litter trays (cheap at Daiso). At least as importantly, they need dog-walkers and foster homes.

QAWS itself needs cat food, bales of hay and massive quantities of water for the farm animals.

Cash donations can't be accepted because QAWS, despite years of efforts, is not a registered charity. Good work, arcane Qatari charity laws.

Pictures, news and updated info can be found on Qatar Living.

I suspect everyone reading this already supports health care reform. But in case you don't, you should read underpope's blog entry about how the health care decisions he was forced to make while uninsured have damaged his long-term health.

For the last couple years, some friends and I have done a month-long photo challenge: take and post a photograph every day for the month of September.

Well, what do you know... September starts tomorrow! Time to dust off our cameras and get going!

If you want to join in, all you have to do is join our Flickr group at http://www.flickr.com/groups/septemberillremember/. Then just take a picture every day, upload it to Flickr, and add it to the group photostream.

I think it's a fun little project... I approach every day a little differently when I know I have to immortalize some part of it on the internet!

The other day I started playing with translationparty.com, which a friend posted about here recently. Translation Party translates things back and forth from English into Japanese until they reach steady state. For example, "All for one and one for all." gets translated into "One is an all in all," then "One is all," then "All is one." At that point, successive translations won't change it, so "All is one" is the equilibrium.

Here are some first lines of famous poems, run through Translation Party. Can you guess the original? (Answers in the comments section.)

1. I'll admit the failure of the marriage of true minds.
   
2. White Chicken REDDOHOIRUBARO are dependent on rain water beside the glass
   
3. Thursday, 1 yellow, this branch, the console
   
4. Mr. Mori has been I think I know. His house in the village;
   
5. Me and my past and I have a night out of curiosity, he had struggled to forget the weakness of the fraction of shares of the traditional fatigue.
   Or, the easier and more enjoyable intermediary stage:
   Midnight, I was bored and tired, traditional, quirky, and I had forgotten in the throes of a fractional share price weakness in the past.
   
6. MANDOREKURUTO, kids, all the legs of the devil, I catch groove shooting stars for several years
   
7. This is a very peaceful, fun time, it is necessary to recognize the end of old age
   Note: this one completely reversed the meaning, so it's fun to trace.
   
8. I have to die to stop the stage, he is me, I could not stop the universal

That last one -- Emily Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death he kindly stopped for me; the carriage held but just ourselves and Immortality." -- has particularly wonderful intermediary steps. When I ran it last week, many layers of angst emerged:

• I could not stop for death, he is like me, and I think the only reason is to stop the universal carriage.
  
• I have stopped my car and only the universal, he is dead I think why could not stop it.
  (Does that not sound like a line from The Sound and the Fury?)
  
• I'm in my own car, I stop myself, I generally have to die or be unable to stop him?

Today the suggestions are different; Google Translate seems to adapt all the time. Now we have:

• I was dead, he is like me, the only reason I could not stop a stagecoach stop is Universal
  
• I could not stop me because the only stagecoach stop is dead, he is like I'm universal
  
• I only have to die to stop the stage, he could not stop me as I am a universal

That's deep, man.

Feel free to post other fun poem translations in the comments for others (read: me!) to guess!

Just two days ago, my friend Mohamed and I were talking about how much Doha driving has calmed down since the speed cameras were installed. It's been years since I saw epically stupid driving on the order that we did in 2004, like people going up on two wheels in a roundabout.

And then, on the way home from work this afternoon, we came across a Land Cruiser on two wheels in a roundabout.

Ramadan kareem, I guess!

In case you've never lived in the Gulf, here's what I'm talking about (not my movie):

I recently used Google translate to help me correspond with a Japanese company, and everything seemed to work out well... but now I'm worried that my emails read like this Read Me.

Excerpts:

"Many to be enjoyed by everyone it is matter of course, design professionals who are willing to give such a high-quality fonts will endeavor to create a vegetarian."

I'm not sure I want design professionals to endeavor to create a vegetarian, but I guess it'll be a very pretty vegetarian if they do!

"If you do not know of any problems or questions, mail a question that you, Question either please comment."

If you do not know of any questions, mail a question. That's so Zen.

"The font data to your hard drive to install about the trouble relating to the copyright holder will be responsible for any Hideki Katayama. And they also can not of any help.

But I don't want my font data to be responsible for even ONE Hideki Katayama, let alone ANY Hideki Katayama!

This last week I've been playing Slime Forest, which is pretty much the best educational game ever. It's an old-skool Ultima-style RPG, only the combat works like this: slime monsters attack you with kanji, and you vanquish them by typing in the English translations. Learning a new language has always felt a little like a frontal assault, but never before have I been able to try for a saving throw.

Here I am being attacked with the kanji for "family":


It also teaches you fun mnemonics for learning new kanji. For example, the above kanji for family includes the radicals 方 ("direction", which the game earlier taught you to remember because it looks like an old man leaning on a walking stick, asking you for directions) and 矢 ("arrow"). Thus you can remember "family" by imagining the confused old man trying to raise a baby arrow.

This weekend I finished the free version of the game by saving the princess, which requires being able to recognize 200 kanji. Go me! I mean, that's an utterly, utterly useless skill; I can't pronounce them, write them, or even translate the words they appear in. But if I ever have to save a princess in real life by being able to recognize the kanji for "mediocre," then by gum you can consider that princess saved. (It's 凡, by the way. Just in case I'm not around when the situation arises.)

My friend Doug has some more serious suggestions about how to learn Japanese, if you're interested. As for me, I just like fighting slimes.

A fun byproduct of learning kanji is that I can even read a little Chinese now. For example, I just ran across the Chinese name for Doha -- 多哈 -- and now know that it means "lots of laughs." It seems that's a phonetic translation, then...

According to the American Time User Survey, the average American spends nearly three hours a day watching TV, but EIGHT MINUTES online. Eight minutes! That's less than is spent on lawn care!