The Smithian

May 7th, 2013

April 30th, 2013

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On April 25, after weeks of international campaigns and fundraisers, the executive management of the Independent…pulled the plug on its operations, days earlier than scheduled…Opened four years ago as an English language division to privately owned Arabic daily El Masry El Youm, the newspaper was one of few that chronicled the real beginnings of the Egyptian revolution…

more. and more.

On April 25, after weeks of international campaigns and fundraisers, the executive management of the Independent…pulled the plug on its operations, days earlier than scheduled…Opened four years ago as an English language division to privately owned Arabic daily El Masry El Youm, the newspaper was one of few that chronicled the real beginnings of the Egyptian revolution…

more. and more.

April 24th, 2013

thesmithian

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Although cycling is known…as a sport in Egypt, hopefully in the future it will turn into a means of transportation that can help reduce traffic and noise pollution. But this requires bike lanes and campaigning.

more.

Although cycling is known…as a sport in Egypt, hopefully in the future it will turn into a means of transportation that can help reduce traffic and noise pollution. But this requires bike lanes and campaigning.

more.

April 2nd, 2013

thesmithian

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… the wealthy in Cairo are fleeing to “satellite cities” with aspirational names such as Hyde Park, Beverly Hills and Dreamland that promise cool, pollution-free atmosphere. Along the state-subsidized ring road surrounding Cairo, a surreal landscape of gated ostentatious pastel-colored villas and apartment complexes, impossibly green lawns, private leisure centers, and English language international schools has been propping up in once bleak and hostile desert…Cairo’s satellite cities represent not only a shifting urban development paradigm, but also a cultural one. Here clothing styles are more relaxed, and transnational fast-food chains and shopping malls predominate, serving as a nexus for entertainment, consumption, and identity. These iterations…reflect the aspirations and fantasies of Cairo’s elite, and embody the political and economic marriage of private developers and the Egyptian state.

more. plus more about New Cairo.

… the wealthy in Cairo are fleeing to “satellite cities” with aspirational names such as Hyde Park, Beverly Hills and Dreamland that promise cool, pollution-free atmosphere. Along the state-subsidized ring road surrounding Cairo, a surreal landscape of gated ostentatious pastel-colored villas and apartment complexes, impossibly green lawns, private leisure centers, and English language international schools has been propping up in once bleak and hostile desert…Cairo’s satellite cities represent not only a shifting urban development paradigm, but also a cultural one. Here clothing styles are more relaxed, and transnational fast-food chains and shopping malls predominate, serving as a nexus for entertainment, consumption, and identity. These iterations…reflect the aspirations and fantasies of Cairo’s elite, and embody the political and economic marriage of private developers and the Egyptian state.

more. plus more about New Cairo.

March 19th, 2013

thesmithian

Another reporter and I had asked him to explain why the Tahrir protests had worked, and he hadn’t the slightest idea. What we were really asking, I suspect, is why most protests fail.

Marc Herman, at Pacific Standard

February 15th, 2013

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art: by William Kentridge

February 4th, 2013

thesmithian

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[meaningful glance]

January 29th, 2013

thesmithian

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Egyptian protester covers his face with a plastic bag to protect himslef from tear gas during clashes with riot police…

Egyptian protester covers his face with a plastic bag to protect himslef from tear gas during clashes with riot police…

January 29th, 2013

thesmithian

'What counts as an emergency now in Egypt? One of the great (and just) complaints of the Tahrir protesters was that the country had been under emergency law for more than thirty years. It took more than a year for it to be lifted after Mubarak’s fall. Even if it has now been imposed in one region, rather than the whole country, Egypt is in the odd position of being a country for which what could count as a chaotic, transitional year—with the introduction of a new constitution—included the only non-emergency months in a generation.'

January 22nd, 2013

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Was the nation divided between those in favor of the old regime and those in favor of the Islamists? Or was it the case that millions of young Egyptians who had taken to the streets to oppose Mubarak were voting “no” to Mubarak’s Shafik, rather than “yes” to Morsi? As the prominent newspaper editor Hassanein Heikal has said at dinner parties and on TV: “It was not that people knew what they wanted and were voting for it. They simply knew what they didn’t want, and they were voting against it.” Many of my own friends—who identify themselves as liberal, secular, “revolutionary”—voted against the possibility of a return to the life we had known.

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art: Egyptian artists in Cairo

Was the nation divided between those in favor of the old regime and those in favor of the Islamists? Or was it the case that millions of young Egyptians who had taken to the streets to oppose Mubarak were voting “no” to Mubarak’s Shafik, rather than “yes” to Morsi? As the prominent newspaper editor Hassanein Heikal has said at dinner parties and on TV: “It was not that people knew what they wanted and were voting for it. They simply knew what they didn’t want, and they were voting against it.” Many of my own friends—who identify themselves as liberal, secular, “revolutionary”—voted against the possibility of a return to the life we had known.

more.

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art: Egyptian artists in Cairo

November 20th, 2012

thesmithian

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…the Obama administration is taking action. The White House says that on Tuesday Hillary Clinton will wrap up her trip to Cambodia with the president and head to the Middle East, where she’ll meet with Israeli, Palestinian, and Egyptian leaders and attempt to mediate a truce.

more.

…the Obama administration is taking action. The White House says that on Tuesday Hillary Clinton will wrap up her trip to Cambodia with the president and head to the Middle East, where she’ll meet with Israeli, Palestinian, and Egyptian leaders and attempt to mediate a truce.

more.

September 15th, 2012

thesmithian

If Bush had done this, I have no doubt…that conservatives would have applauded it universally…Obama did exactly the right thing…and in fact kind of a ballsy thing. I know it’s election time, and we can’t expect people who despise Obama to give him a single point just seven weeks from election day, but the reaction I saw…was just transparently about politics with no concern about international relations and the safety of our people in Egypt, which Obama’s comment helped secure.

Michael Tomasky, at the Daily Beast. re the President’s comments about Egypt.

September 12th, 2012

thesmithian

‘Mr. Romney left many policy questions hanging…’

Would he have countermanded any effort to issue a news release to the Egyptian people that tried to forestall a protest before it gathered outside the embassy? If Mr. Obama’s policies had created an air of weakness in the Middle East that encouraged attacks, how could he explain the many attacks on American facilities in the region under Mr. Bush, or the far larger attack on American facilities in Lebanon — killing more than 240 people — under President Ronald Reagan?

more.