Archive for » March, 2005 «

Nietzsche

I was looking over some of the news articles by Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian journalist who was held captive for a month by Iraqi insurgents. Interestingly enough, 35 minutes after her release she was nearly killed by U.S. troops as she was trying to exit Iraq. There are some theories that this was “accidentally on-purpose,” as she found some pretty controversial stuff — you can read about a woman who spent time in Abu Ghraib here, and there are other stories in the Il Manifesto, an Italian newspaper. This particular story about prisoner abuse brought to mind a quote from the (in)famous Nietzsche, Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

Not much to add to that, and thanks to Nafisi, who put that poignant and timeless quote into her book.

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Baghdad Burning

Now that I have my new Bloglines account set up, I can get the feed for my newest favorite blog, Baghdad Burning, a blog written by an Iraqi woman about the current situation there. Since I am currently reading Reading Lolita in Tehran, an amazing book about an English Lit professor whose study of 19th century American novels was considered “revolutionary” in Iran after the ayatollahs gained power in the 1980′s, the allegations that radical Shias who came into power during the last elections may make Iraq another Iran is downright chilling. more »

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Bloglines

You may note that there is a new button just under my Google search, called “Bloglines.” I have been explaining this to my class, but you can set up feeds for your favorite blogs. Basically, you add blogs into your feeds, and whenever there is a new post, it goes to the Bloglines browser. They will also suggest other blogs you may be interested in — a lot like TiVo for Blogs. It’s a cool program, now owned by AskJeeves. If you are a blog junkie, and you want to subscribe to my page, check it out.

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Nuttiness

Okay, it’s 2 a.m. and I am still fighting a computer full of viruses…I haven’t used IE in so long, I forgot what a pain it is. This computer keeps crashing my virus and spyware software programs, so I have now downloaded Sophos three times. *sigh* Anyway, for those of you that think I am crazy about Harry Potter, there is a shop, called Alivan’s, which actually sells real, handcrafted wands, and you can take a Harry Potter tour, and ride on the actual Hogwarts Express used in the movie…pretty cool, and very, very geeky.

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